Standardising Equality in the Algorithmic Society? A Research Agenda

Raphaële Xenidis, Miriam Fahimi
Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness, PMLR 294:310-314, 2025.

Abstract

In 2024, the EU adopted the AI Act, a new set of rules for trustworthy artificial intelligence. This legal instrument carves a large place for standardisation, a regulatory technique that consists in crafting so-called harmonised technical standards, to facilitate legal compliance by industry stakeholders. While EU technical standards have been used in the past for ensuring product safety, for the first time the AI Act relies on standardisation to facilitate compliance with fundamental rights, including the right to non-discrimination and equality. The attempt to translate inherently open-textured rights and ethical principles into operationalizable standards raises critical questions. In particular, how will standardisation practices under the new EU AI Act affect, transform, contest and stabilise notions of equality and non-discrimination in an increasingly algorithmic society? This paper proposes a research agenda to address this question and unpack the black box of AI standardisation.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v294-xenidis25a, title = {Standardising Equality in the Algorithmic Society? A Research Agenda}, author = {Xenidis, Rapha\"ele and Fahimi, Miriam}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness}, pages = {310--314}, year = {2025}, editor = {Weerts, Hilde and Pechenizkiy, Mykola and Allhutter, Doris and Corrêa, Ana Maria and Grote, Thomas and Liem, Cynthia}, volume = {294}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {30 Jun--02 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlresearch/v294/main/assets/xenidis25a/xenidis25a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v294/xenidis25a.html}, abstract = {In 2024, the EU adopted the AI Act, a new set of rules for trustworthy artificial intelligence. This legal instrument carves a large place for standardisation, a regulatory technique that consists in crafting so-called harmonised technical standards, to facilitate legal compliance by industry stakeholders. While EU technical standards have been used in the past for ensuring product safety, for the first time the AI Act relies on standardisation to facilitate compliance with fundamental rights, including the right to non-discrimination and equality. The attempt to translate inherently open-textured rights and ethical principles into operationalizable standards raises critical questions. In particular, how will standardisation practices under the new EU AI Act affect, transform, contest and stabilise notions of equality and non-discrimination in an increasingly algorithmic society? This paper proposes a research agenda to address this question and unpack the black box of AI standardisation.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Standardising Equality in the Algorithmic Society? A Research Agenda %A Raphaële Xenidis %A Miriam Fahimi %B Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2025 %E Hilde Weerts %E Mykola Pechenizkiy %E Doris Allhutter %E Ana Maria Corrêa %E Thomas Grote %E Cynthia Liem %F pmlr-v294-xenidis25a %I PMLR %P 310--314 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v294/xenidis25a.html %V 294 %X In 2024, the EU adopted the AI Act, a new set of rules for trustworthy artificial intelligence. This legal instrument carves a large place for standardisation, a regulatory technique that consists in crafting so-called harmonised technical standards, to facilitate legal compliance by industry stakeholders. While EU technical standards have been used in the past for ensuring product safety, for the first time the AI Act relies on standardisation to facilitate compliance with fundamental rights, including the right to non-discrimination and equality. The attempt to translate inherently open-textured rights and ethical principles into operationalizable standards raises critical questions. In particular, how will standardisation practices under the new EU AI Act affect, transform, contest and stabilise notions of equality and non-discrimination in an increasingly algorithmic society? This paper proposes a research agenda to address this question and unpack the black box of AI standardisation.
APA
Xenidis, R. & Fahimi, M.. (2025). Standardising Equality in the Algorithmic Society? A Research Agenda. Proceedings of Fourth European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 294:310-314 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v294/xenidis25a.html.

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