Automation in Administrative Decision-Making Concerning Social Benefits

This chapter presents automated administrative decision-making from a practical perspective. The point of view is that of a government agency with a long history of automated decision-making concerning social benefits. Special emphasis is given to the actual process of constructing various kinds of information systems that make administrative decisions. Differences and similarities between manual and automated decisions are presented in a practical context. This includes a discussion on the possibilities of “fully automated” social benefit decision-making in Finnish legal environment, and the pivotal role of “partial” automation in effective public administration. The current and possible uses and challenges of applying artificial intelligence in administrative decision-making are also discussed. The legal context of this chapter is the ongoing legislative process concerning automated administrative decisions in Finland. One of the main concerns has been the question of responsibility in automated decision-making, that is, who is or who are the person(s) legally responsible for the automatically made decision. The chapter argues that the responsibility should be divided among persons responsible for constructing the information system that makes the administrative decision in question. Lastly, the chapter argues that legislators should separate rule-based decision logic from decisions made using artificial intelligence.