aiqbench analysis
The ECHO framework offers a novel method for anticipating AI harms by systematically linking specific lifecycle biases to their potential societal consequences through participatory stakeholder input. By generating descriptive and inferential ethical matrices, this approach moves beyond generic risk assessments to provide structured data that can directly inform AI governance and regulatory actions. This research is particularly relevant for developers and policymakers seeking proactive strategies to mitigate bias-driven harms in high-stakes domains like healthcare and hiring.
ECHO: A Participatory Framework for Bias-Anchored AI Harm Anticipation
arXiv:2512.03068v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems increasingly shape consequential decisions, creating value but also potential harms for individuals, social groups, and society. This has prompted calls for proactive approaches that anticipate harms early in the AI lifecycle. Although prior research identifies AI biases as sources of harm, the associations between particular lifecycle biases and harms remain insufficiently understood. We introduce \texttt{ECHO}, a systematic, context-sensitive, and participatory framework that anchors early harm anticipation in lifecycle biases and elicits their perceived associations with potential harms.\texttt{ECHO} identifies domain-specific stakeholders, instantiates biases through vignettes, collects harm judgements from human participants and a large language model (LLM), and organises them into descriptive and inferential ethical matrices. Applied to disease diagnosis and hiring, \texttt{ECHO} surfaced non-uniform, context-sensitive bias--harm patterns indicating which harms were perceived as plausible consequences of particular AI biases. The theoretical interpretability of these patterns and the inferential support for specific associations strengthen the plausibility of the mappings. By linking stakeholder-specific anticipated harms to lifecycle biases, \texttt{ECHO} supports source-level harm anticipation and provides structured input to subsequent AI governance actions
Abstract:Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems increasingly shape consequential decisions, creating value but also potential harms for individuals, social groups, and society. This has prompted calls for proactive approaches that anticipate harms early in the AI lifecycle. Although prior research identifies AI biases as sources of harm, the associations between particular lifecycle biases and harms remain insufficiently understood. We introduce \texttt{ECHO}, a systematic, context-sensitive, and participatory framework that anchors early harm anticipation in lifecycle biases and elicits their perceived associations with potential harms.\texttt{ECHO} identifies domain-specific stakeholders, instantiates biases through vignettes, collects harm judgements from human participants and a large language model (LLM), and organises them into descriptive and inferential ethical matrices. Applied to disease diagnosis and hiring, \texttt{ECHO} surfaced non-uniform, context-sensitive bias--harm patterns indicating which harms were perceived as plausible consequences of particular AI biases. The theoretical interpretability of these patterns and the inferential support for specific associations strengthen the plausibility of the mappings. By linking stakeholder-specific anticipated harms to lifecycle biases, \texttt{ECHO} supports source-level harm anticipation and provides structured input to subsequent AI governance actions
Computers and Society (cs.CY); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
arXiv:2512.03068 [cs.CY]
(or arXiv:2512.03068v2 [cs.CY] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.03068 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite
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