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Accountability sinks

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Re: Accountability sinks

#41

Post by bigiain »

cj wrote: post #29
23B1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author is describing a specific phenomena different from shared accountability.

I disagree with the authors definition of accountability: > The fundamental law of accountability: the extent to which you are able to change a decision is precisely the extent to which you can be accountable for it, and vice versa. No. You can absolutely be accountable for something that you can’t change a decision about. Simple example: You’re a branding agency and you decide to rename X to Y. (No pun intended). Th…

It's not clear from the article (which I largely agree with), but that "ability to change the decision" can just as easily refer to change the decision before it is made, instead of any ability to change it afterwards.

Amazon's concept of "two way and one way doors" is useful here. A two way door decision lets you go back if the decision turns out to be bad and can be made with significantly less scrutiny that a one way door decision which you cannot back out of after you've acted on it.

Re: Accountability sinks

#42

Post by bigiain »

alilleybrinker wrote: post #15

Cathy O'Neil's "Weapons of Math Destruction" (2016, Penguin Random House) is a good companion to this concept, covering the "accountability sink" from the other side of those constructing or overseeing systems. Cathy argues that the use of algorithm in some contexts permits a new scale of harmful and unaccountable systems that ought to be reigned in. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241363/weapons-of-m...

Brings to mind old wisdom:

"A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a Management Decision." IBM presentation, 1979

Re: Accountability sinks

#43

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

RachelF wrote: post #23
gmuslera wrote: post #12

Taleb's Skin in the Game seem to be related to this, but from a different optic. Goodhart's Law is also mentioned, but is not the core argument. In the end, is about agency, who have it, and system dynamics to get rid of responsibility.

True. The modern company is a very very limited liability company: - Cut corners so your jets crash and kill people (Boeing)? - Cheat on emissions testing so your product kill people (VW)? - Hush up drug trial results so you kills people (Pfizer)? - Sloppy security leads to hundreds of millions of people's personal data being leaked (too many to mention)? What happens to those in charge? Nothing. Perhaps they leave w…

Liability and retroactive clawbacks need to be introduced, particularly for very large organizations that like the government, don’t face real competition.

Re: Accountability sinks

#44

Post by cj »

godelski wrote: post #36
cj wrote: post #14

This article seems to redefine the word "accountability". In the first sentence: > In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it. Why not just call it "no-consequence sinks"? It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say "accountability" isn't working bec…

Sounds like you perfectly understood the article. I don't get what you're complaining about. You agree but don't like the language?

Basically, yea. Maybe being pedantic.

In certain fields, there is a serious and distinct difference between Accountability, Responsibility, Consulting, and Informing.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_ma...

There’s a whole philosophy behind it. My spidey senses tingle when those words get misconstrued.

Re: Accountability sinks

#45

Post by spencerchubb »

alilleybrinker wrote: post #15

Cathy O'Neil's "Weapons of Math Destruction" (2016, Penguin Random House) is a good companion to this concept, covering the "accountability sink" from the other side of those constructing or overseeing systems. Cathy argues that the use of algorithm in some contexts permits a new scale of harmful and unaccountable systems that ought to be reigned in. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241363/weapons-of-m...

It's much easier to hold an algorithm accountable than an organization of humans. You can reprogram an algorithm. But good look influencing an organization to change

Re: Accountability sinks

#46

Post by bigiain »

lstodd wrote: post #18
cj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have 200 candidates, you need to hire somebody to sift through the resumes, have like 5 rounds on interview and everybody chiming in, whoever pulls the trigger or recommends someone is now on the hook for their performance. That's not how accountability works, in the traditional sense. What you described is Person A (accountable for hiring) hiring person B (responsible for screening and evaluating candidates…

heh never works that way. an experienced bureucrat like you describe always has a shit-deflecting canopy. so whatever decisions he personally took are never attributable to him personally. it just so happened.

The terms "shit umbrella" and "shit funnel" have been around for a long time, at least in the context of management in software development.

https://managementpatterns.blogspot.com/2013/01/pattern-shit...

I learned early on when I moved from development to management that a big part of my job was being accountable for everything my team did (short of outright sabotage). You don't hold junior devs accountable for anything, you do your best to monitor their work anytime they're working on something mission critical and to mentor them through the mistakes they make. Senior devs take on some or a lot of that monitoring and mentoring role, especially as the team size grows, but as their manager I am still accountable for any errors they make too (especially including letting errors from junior devs slip through).

Sometimes I think the most important part of my job is standing up before senior management and saying something like "My team made this series of decisions which resulted in the bad outcome we are here to discuss. I apologise and accept full responsibility. The team has learned from this, and we can assure you we will never repeat this mistake." And then deflecting and outright refusing to throw any of my team under the bus by naming them - to the point of being accused of insubordination occasionally.

(To be honest, I didn't internalise that quite early enough. There are probably a few apologies I should have made from back then...)

Re: Accountability sinks

#47

Post by bigiain »

from-nibly wrote: post #20
TZubiri wrote: post #8

I was thinking about something similar today. Sometimes accountability can be a blocker, for example for hiring. If you have 1 candidate, it's an easy call, if you have 3 candidates, you evaluate in less than a week. If you have 200 candidates, you need to hire somebody to sift through the resumes, have like 5 rounds on interview and everybody chiming in, whoever pulls the trigger or recommends someone is now on the…

You can still be on the hook for rolling a 100 sided die. And in some cases that's effectively all you can do. At the end of the day it's a trolley problem (the real one, not deciding between two bad things, but looking at how people typically define reponsibility) One way or another you gotta own the decisions you make and deal with it. Even if the decision is to let someone else make the decision. The issue is that…

> You can still be on the hook for rolling a 100 sided die. And in some cases that's effectively all you can do.

Sure. And the article allows for that. You need to have "an account" that acknowledges that at the time you didn't and couldn't have enough information to completely de risk the decision, but that you'd discussed and agreed that the 1/100 (or 1/5 or 1/10,000) risk of the bad outcome was a known and acceptable risk.

"where an account is something that you tell. How did something happen, what were the conditions that led to it happening, what made the decision seem like a good one at the time? Who were all of the people involved in the decision or event?"

Re: Accountability sinks

#48

Post by conradolandia »

spencerchubb wrote: post #45
alilleybrinker wrote: post #15

Cathy O'Neil's "Weapons of Math Destruction" (2016, Penguin Random House) is a good companion to this concept, covering the "accountability sink" from the other side of those constructing or overseeing systems. Cathy argues that the use of algorithm in some contexts permits a new scale of harmful and unaccountable systems that ought to be reigned in. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241363/weapons-of-m...

It's much easier to hold an algorithm accountable than an organization of humans. You can reprogram an algorithm. But good look influencing an organization to change

That is not accountability. Can the algorithm be sent to jail if it commit crimes?

Re: Accountability sinks

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

alilleybrinker wrote: post #15

Cathy O'Neil's "Weapons of Math Destruction" (2016, Penguin Random House) is a good companion to this concept, covering the "accountability sink" from the other side of those constructing or overseeing systems. Cathy argues that the use of algorithm in some contexts permits a new scale of harmful and unaccountable systems that ought to be reigned in. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241363/weapons-of-m...

"Cathy argues that the use of algorithm in some contexts permits a new scale of harmful and unaccountable systems that ought to be reigned in."

Algorithms are used by people. An algorithm only allows "harmful and unaccountable systems" if people, as the agents imposing accountability, choose to not hold the people acting by way of the algorithm accountable on the basis of the use of the algorithm, but...that really has nothing to do with the algorithm. If you swapped in a specially-designated ritual sceptre for the algorithm in that sentence (or, perhaps more familiarly, allowed "status as a police officer" to confer both formal immunity from most civil liability and practical immunity from criminal prosecution for most harms done in that role), it functions exactly the same way: what enables harmful and unaccountable systems is when humans choose not to hold other humans accountable for harms, on whatever basis.

Re: Accountability sinks

#50

Post by bongodongobob »

skybrian wrote: post #38

I find that the word "accountability" almost always obscures what's being talked about. If we remove it, we can instead talk about understanding and feedback: As organizations become more complex, it's difficult to understand the consequences of many high-level decisions. Unless great effort is made to gather feedback, it won't happen. Not only that: the lack of immediate, human communication results in one-way feedb…

You're really good at bullshitting and saying nothing at the same time. Feedback and communication is pointless without accountability. I'm sure this sounded smart when you were typing it out but man, this is dumb. Like, this is literally what lack of accountability sounds like.
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