Purpose of the tool
This manifesto has been written as a practical tool and aid for anyone carrying out, managing or influencing mathematical work (including quantitative modelling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning). It provides insight into how to undertake and develop mathematically-powered products and services in a safe and responsible way.
Key concepts
Rather than give a framework of objectives to achieve, this tool introduces a process that can be integrated into the common ways in which mathematical products or services are created, from start to finish. This process helps address the various issues and problems that can arise for the product or service, the managers and developers, the institution, and for wider society. To do this, the manifesto breaks down the typical procedure of mathematical development into 10 key stages; our “10 pillars for responsible development” which follow a somewhat chronological ordering of the steps, and associated challenges, that frequently occur in mathematical work.
Together these 10 pillars cover issues of the entire lifecycle of a mathematical product or service, including the preparatory work required to responsibly start a project, central questions of good technical mathematics and data science, and issues of communication, deployment and follow-up maintenance specifically related to mathematical systems.
History and background
This manifesto, and the pillars within it, are the culmination of 7 years of work done by the Maurice Chiodo and Dennis Mueller as part of the Cambridge University Ethics in Mathematics Project. These are all tried-and-tested ideas that have been presented and used in both academic and industrial environments. In their work, the authors have directly seen that mathematics can be an incredible tool for good in society, but also that without careful consideration it can cause immense harm. It is hoped that following this tool will empower its users to reduce the risk of undesirable and unwanted consequences of their mathematical work.
CSER’s involvement
CSER has been involved with the Cambridge University Ethics in Mathematics Project from very early on, including as sponsors of EiM2: The second Meeting on Ethics in Mathematics in 2019, when Maurice Chiodo was a CSER research affiliate.
More recently, the main composition and write-up of the tool was done in 2023, while Maurice Chiodo was employed as a research associate at CSER, and Dennis Müller was a research affiliate there.
Where to get started
The most up to date version of the manifesto can always be found on arxiv at
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.09131
The manifesto is laid out by first breaking down the typical procedure of mathematical development into 10 key stages; the “10 pillars for responsible development”. Each pillar addresses an important phase, and associated challenges, that frequently occurs in mathematical work
The ordering of the pillars has been carefully chosen, to reflect the order in which events, tasks, decisions, and actions generally happen in the mathematical development process. This is the approximate order in which the user might need to make decisions and take actions on the issues highlighted in each pillar. Think of this manifesto as a document that follows the user’s workflow; as they move forward, the manifesto moves with them. But of course the mathematical development process is often nonlinear and iterative, and it is therefore important to go back to previous pillars, or look ahead to later ones, when needed.
Each pillar is laid out with around 3 main “steps”, to help the user see how
their work might evolve alongside the pillar. Included within each step is a handful of “questions” that the user will likely need to address in order to manage the key idea of the step. These are deliberately phrased as questions, rather than instructions, because the user will need to think about and reflect on them carefully. This manifesto is a tool, and not an automaton. It does not make the right decisions for the user, but rather it helps them make the right enquiries and take the right decisions themself. The questions are there to lead and guide the user as they endeavour to create a responsible mathematical product.
To further assist, the manifesto breaks down each question into more detailed “checkboxes”, which are aspects that the user should consider when trying to ensure that they have dealt with the question adequately. These checkboxes are not a checklist to be simply ticked off, and many of them will require substantial work to consider and address. Moreover, the checkboxes are not an exhaustive enumeration of things to address, but rather a minimal set, there to give the user a starting point on some of the most common problems and pitfalls that stem from each question. At the end of each checkbox is a short layman’s reminder which the authors found useful when talking to other mathematicians; a few easy-to-remember words, written as a question, that encapsulate what the checkbox was trying to achieve.
For those looking for more resources or further reading, please consult the Cambridge University Ethics in Mathematics Project webpage, which has many such reading, learnding, and teaching resources: http://www.ethics.maths.cam.ac.uk
CSER’s 3 top tips for using the manifesto
- This tool is best used throughout a project or task, not just at the start or at the end. It should not be used only at the end of a project as a “safety or ethics review”. While it can help in a post-production safety audit, the manifesto is intended to follow the entire development and production process of mathematical work, from the pre-development phase right up to the post-deployment maintenance and follow-up phase. Likewise, it is not a tool that should be used just once at the start of a project to do a full “safety/ethics plan”, as the evolution of a project or work package contains too many unknowns, making it impossible to a-priori address all relevant issues. New, pressing problems will always arise, and this tool is designed to be with the user every step of the way to identify, and help address, such issues.
- This tool should be understood and used by the entire team, not just those who are explicitly tasked to manage the project’s safety, ethics and risks. While it is certainly beneficial, and often even necessary, to have team members specifically tasked with managing safety, they simply cannot carry out all such work on their own. This tool is designed to help all team members identify the areas and issues that need to be addressed in their mathematical work, to assist them in developing their output responsibly and ethically. It does not give them direct answers; instead, it guides them to and gives them some of the questions to be answered. While this allows its users to quickly start using the manifesto, it also means that the responsibility to answer the questions raised by the tool is put onto the entire team.
- The points covered in this tool can be quite complex: while making a start is comparatively easy, to gain the tool’s full advantage all its users will need to spend some time studying, or being taught, what these all mean. The 10 pillars presented in this tool try to span the entire lifecycle of a mathematical product or service in its complexity, and hence go beyond what is typically presented in frameworks that solely focus on one issue (e.g. data ethics). While this ensures that everyone can find a starting point and use the manifesto to benefit their project, it also means that to address every issue raised, a new user will have to study, or be taught, about aspects of socio-technical systems not necessarily presented in a typical university curriculum. Each user should expect to be challenged by this tool, and to potentially rethink some of their development practices.