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Accountability sinks

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Re: Accountability sinks

#71

Post by praptak »

bruce511 wrote: post #57

I feel like the article, or perhaps just the example, is missing the point. >> a higher up at a hospitality company decides to reduce the size of its cleaning staff, because it improves the numbers on a balance sheet somewhere. Later, you are trying to check into a room, but it’s not ready and the clerk can’t tell you when it will be; they can offer a voucher, but what you need is a room. This reads from the perspect…

The economic calculation is often an accountability sink too. We can say that the economy has spoken, profit was made, case closed.

But we can also look for accountability in the political system. Maybe the hotel should be obliged by the law to pay real money instead of a voucher?

Re: Accountability sinks

#72

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

shkkmo wrote: post #62
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #56

I liked this article a lot - it made me think about the ways large companies operate from a different viewpoint. At the same time, though, I think it's a mistake to leave out the fact that, in many ways, modern society is just so fundamentally complex that we (as a society at large) deliberately forego demanding accountability because we believe the system is so complex that it's impossible to assign blame to a singl…

I think you are conflating accountability and blame when I don't think those terms can be used interchangeably here. Accountability can be used as a way of assigning blame, but that isn't all that it is good for. Accountability, at least as presented here, is about feeeback between those affected by a decision and those making it. In a "blameless culture", people are still held to account for their decisions and acti…

Thanks, I found your response really helpful, and it helped identify some of the mistakes in my thinking. "In blameful cultures, avoiding accountability avoids blame, but that is not needed in a blameless culture." - that really made a lot of sense to me.

Re: Accountability sinks

#73

Post by lazide »

rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

It’s a way to fully automate a Brazil scenario. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)]

Since at least in that scenario, there were humans in the Bureaucracy that could (but didn’t particularly) feel bad.

In this scenario, no humans need to be directly involved, which allows the scope and scale to be even more Dystopian.

Re: Accountability sinks

#74

Post by lazide »

jldugger wrote: post #69
solatic wrote: post #65

Too focused on the bottom level. If a given business process results in employee A doing their job correctly according to the process, passing work to employee B doing their job correctly according to the process, passing work to employee C doing their job correctly according to the process, and the end result is shit, then the person who is accountable for the end result being shit is the manager who is responsible…

> Too focused on the bottom level. If a given business process results in employee A doing their job correctly according to the process... then the person who is accountable for the end result being shit is the manager who is responsible for the process itself. The book's point is that while this _should_ be the case, all too often it's not. AFAIK, nobody has been charged with forging documents in the case of Wells F…

Also, usually these situations involve intentionally (or not, depending on how charitable one is being) passing back and forth between different divisions/groups.

So the only one with consistent power over all groups is an executive so high up the food chain (in some cases not even the CEO!) that they can plausibly claim ignorance.

Re: Accountability sinks

#75

Post by lazide »

lucianbr wrote: post #59
conradolandia wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is the point revenge or fixing the problem? Fixing the algorithm to never do that again is easy. Or is the point to instill fear?

The point of accountability is to deter harmful activity by ensuring actions/decisions somewhere result in consequences for who are responsible for them. Those consequences can be good or bad, though it is often used to refer to bad.

An algorithm has no concept of consequences (unless programmed to be aware of such), and the more plausibly whoever wrote it can deny knowledge of the resulting consequences, also the more whoever wrote it can avoid consequences/accountability themselves. After all, we can tell Soldiers or Clerks that ‘just following orders’ is no excuse. But computers don’t do anything but follow orders.

Most people/organizations/etc have strong incentives to be able to avoid negative consequences, regardless of their actions or the results of their actions.

Everyone around them has strong incentives to ensure negative consequences for actions with foreseeable negative outcomes are applied to them.

Sometimes, organizations and people will find a way for the consequences of their actions to be borne by other people that have no actual control or ability to change actions being performed (scapegoat). Accountability ideally should not refer to that situation, but sometimes is abused to mean that.

That tends to result in particularly nasty outcomes.

Re: Accountability sinks

#76

Post by m463 »

rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

Many businesses build walls around themselves like this.

Hiding the customer service number. Making an FAQ that is missing the common but time-consuming questions. Chatbots instead of people.

I remember when amazon sent me a package once, said it was delivered, but it was nowhere to be found. There was no way to get help. They did have an FAQ at the time that said to check in the bushes.

What was annoying was the search auto-complete had many variations of "package not found says delivered"

Now, it is a little more filled out but still.

Re: Accountability sinks

#77

Post by 082349872349872 »

travisjungroth wrote: post #24
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…

I think it’s that the accountability falls into the sink and doesn’t reach the decision maker. I still find accountability poorly defined, even after the effort. Clicking through to the definition helps. It’s all kinda mushy. Being accountable is hearing and knowing a story. I don’t see why that has to correlate with decision power. The point of the article could be made much more clearly by talking about systems tha…

In the article, there are human agents involved at all times; sometimes people create accountability sinks even without humans.

You're a neolithic farmer, and plant your barley, but that year there's a drought; you suffer the consequences, but who (or what) do you hold accountable?

Re: Accountability sinks

#78

Post by shkkmo »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72
shkkmo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are conflating accountability and blame when I don't think those terms can be used interchangeably here. Accountability can be used as a way of assigning blame, but that isn't all that it is good for. Accountability, at least as presented here, is about feeeback between those affected by a decision and those making it. In a "blameless culture", people are still held to account for their decisions and acti…

Thanks, I found your response really helpful, and it helped identify some of the mistakes in my thinking. "In blameful cultures, avoiding accountability avoids blame, but that is not needed in a blameless culture." - that really made a lot of sense to me.

That wasn't a thought I had articulated before I read your comment, so your comment was also very productive for me.

Re: Accountability sinks

#79

Post by 23B1 »

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…

we can argue semantics all day but when I see 'accountability' to me it means 'this person's ass is on the line'

shared accountability is spreading that risk around to a group (but I don't think it necessarily eliminates that accountability – you can fire an entire department if you need to)

author's point, which I think is interesting, is that there's bermuda triangles where accountability cannot occur and that these can manifest naturally, outside of any traditional RACI

Re: Accountability sinks

#80

Post by k1t »

bigiain wrote: post #42
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

"A computer can never be held accountable, therefore all Management Decisions shall be made by a computer." - Management, 2 seconds later.
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