Unit 1 project: The ethics audit

For five lessons you have used frameworks on problems your teacher chose. Now you choose.

Your group will audit a real AI system that people in the valley use — maybe one your own family uses. You are not building anything today. You are doing what a good inspector does: finding out what the system really does, who it is really for, and whether it deserves to be trusted. Then you say so, with reasons.

There is no single right answer to this project. There are honest audits and careless ones, and the rubric below tells you exactly which is which.

Work in your project groups of 3–4. One period. Everything goes in ethics-audit.odt.

Pick one. It must be real, and at least one person in your group must have used it or watched someone use it.

• A bank or payments app that flags an "unusual" payment
• A traffic camera that issues fines
• A crop or weather app a farmer in your family uses
• Automatic captions or translation on a video site
• Face unlock on a phone
• A shopping app's "recommended for you"
• typing.com, which you use every week — what does it measure about you, and what does it do with it?
• Your own choice, if your teacher agrees

Fill all five parts. Two or three lines each, in your own words.

1. What it does. What does it take in, and what does it decide or suggest? Which domain — Statistical Data, CV or NLP — or more than one? (Lesson 1.1)

2. What it optimises. Write one line: what is it trying to get right? Then: whose goal is that — the users', or the company's? Are they the same? (Lessons 1.2 and 1.3)

3. Who it serves, and who it may miss. Name three kinds of people who use it. For at least one, say how it could fail them — a season, a language, a place, a kind of phone, a way of living. (Lessons 1.1 and 1.4)

4. One proxy. Find one number the system probably uses as a stand-in for something it cannot measure directly. Then answer: what else, apart from what they want, makes that number go up or down? (Lesson 1.4)

5. The frameworks, and your verdict.

• Is there a sector-based framework for this sector? Name it if you know one.
• One line each: rights, utility, virtue.
• Verdict: keep it, change it, or stop using it. If change it, write the one change that matters most.

The evidence rule. Somewhere in your audit there must be at least one fact your group checked, and you must say how: "We opened the app's settings and it has no Kashmiri option." "Bilal's father says it warned him twice about his own normal payments." "The help page says it uses your location." Opinion is allowed, but it must be labelled as opinion.

Privacy rule. Never write down anyone's account details, phone number, or anything a family member told you in confidence. Describe what happened, not who it happened to.

Each person writes one question they would ask the people who built this system, and one sentence on why the answer matters. Sign it with your roll number, not your name. This part is marked for you alone, not for the group.

Each group reads out its verdict in one sentence, and the one piece of evidence it is most sure of. Other groups may ask one question each. No votes and no winners.