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Housing corporations play a key role in neighborhood livability, but they operate within a fragmented network of responsibilities, alongside public and private actors, including the local police, municipalities, support and welfare services, local business owners, and residents themselves. This network is also shaped by technological mediation: e.g., digital communication between housing corporations and tenants, automated flagging systems for rent deferral and camera surveillance (whether installed by housing corporations or residents themselves through “smart” video doorbells). 

With fragmented responsibilities in socio-technical contexts, there are several well-documented accountability challenges. In essence, accountability is a relationship: it involves an actor, an individual or organization, being answerable to a relevant forum (or fora), which evaluates their conduct and may impose negative or positive consequences (Bovens, 2007). A key challenge with fragmentized responsibilities is the “problem of many hands,” where no single individual or organization can be reasonably held accountable for an overarching result, because many people contributed in small and overlapping ways (Doorn, 2012; Thompson, 1980; Van de Poel et al., 2012). Digital mediation introduces additional complexities: digital technologies can be used to offload accountability, “computer says no” (Nissenbaum, 1996), or to outsource moral responsibility, “blame it on AI” (Constantinescu et al., 2022). Additionally, as digital technologies facilitate connections across space and time, they can create moral distance, running the risk that users feel detached from the individuals their decisions affect (Villegas-Galaviz & Martin, 2024).

The article I am currently writing as part of my PhD on the legal aspects of AI and public safety explores (the challenges of) accountability networks in socio-technical contexts, through a case study on the role of housing corporations in neighborhood livability in the Netherlands. A key focus is a current legislative proposal that would enable (sensitive) data-sharing between housing corporations and other organizations involved in neighborhood livability and resident well-being. The proposal is driven by housing corporations’ experience that tenants with rent arrears typically face multiple complex problems. By combining different data sources – such as rent arrears and medical histories – housing corporations want to gain a more holistic understanding of tenant vulnerabilities, allowing them to connect tenants to appropriate support services, rather than merely enforcing rent collection. With data-sharing as the foundation for automation, it presents an opportunity to design and automate with care. One conceptual answer to prevent (prospective) automation from reinforcing punitive approaches and obscuring accountability, comes from care ethics, which considers relationships, (inter)dependency and vulnerability as the basis of existence, consequently invoking duties of care. Imagining automated systems through the lens of care shifts the focus from risk assessment and control to relational accountability and patterns of vulnerability. Technology for social support rather social control.

References

Bovens, M. (2007). Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework. European Law Journal, 13(4), 447–468.

Constantinescu, M., Vică, C., Uszkai, R., & Voinea, C. (2022). Blame it on the AI? On the moral responsibility of artificial moral advisors. Philosophy & Technology, 35(2), 35.

Doorn, N. (2012). Responsibility Ascriptions in Technology Development and Engineering: Three Perspectives. Science and Engineering Ethics, 18(1), 69–90.

Hart, J., Knol, F., Maas-de Waal, C., & Roes, T. (2002). Zekere banden: Sociale cohesie, leefbaarheid en veiligheid. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau.

Nissenbaum, H. (1996). Accountability in a computerized society. Science and Engineering Ethics, 2(1), 25–42.

Schuilenburg, M., & van Steden, R. (2016). Positieve veiligheid. Een inleiding. Tijdschrift over Cultuur & Criminaliteit, 6(3), 3–18.

Thompson, D. F. (1980). Moral Responsibility of Public Officials: The Problem of Many Hands. American Political Science Review, 74(4), 905–916.

Van de Poel, I., Nihlén Fahlquist, J., Doorn, N., Zwart, S., & Royakkers, L. (2012). The problem of many hands: Climate change as an example. Science and Engineering Ethics, 18, 49–67.

Villegas-Galaviz, C., & Martin, K. (2024). Moral distance, AI, and the ethics of care. AI & Society, 39(4), 1695–1706.