Albert Sabater és Professor Serra Húnter de Sociologia i Director de la Càtedra – Observatori d’Ètica en Intel·ligència Artificial de Catalunya a la Universitat de Girona.

És Doctor en Censos i Enquestes i Màster en Mètodes d’Investigació Social i Estadística per la Universitat de Manchester (Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research). També ostenta un Màster en Demografia per la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics).

A Tale at the Crossroads of Artificial Intelligence, Social Assessment and Demography
Abstract

In more and more countries, policymakers increasingly use Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms
to decide on public service provisions and state benefits among their citizens whose
sociodemographic profiles are assessed and evaluated for decision making. This applies, for
example, to assigning child allowances, unemployment benefits, health insurances or
retirement. In doing so, AI-based social assessment tecnologies are employed to define (and
categorise) present and future human behaviour on scales such as deserving/non-deserving,
desirable/non-desirable, high-perfoming/low-performing, acceptable/non-acceptable.
The purpose of this seminar is twofold. First, it will discuss how delegating decisions based on
such value judgements to machines raises important issues, not least because societal core
values are affected and at stake, and decisions on providing or refusing public social services
have far-reaching consequences for the concerned individuals and their families. Second, it will
highlight how demographic data are increasingly used for enhancing algorithms for AI systems
in general and AI-based social assessment in particular.