Research agenda for algorithmic fairness studies: Access to justice lessons for interdisciplinary research

Abstract

Access to justice is one of the fundamental legitimating principles underlying all modern Western legal systems, yet its role in critical algorithm studies remains underdeveloped. In historical and methodological terms, the access to justice movement showcased multi- and interdisciplinary research on legal phenomena. We argue that interdisciplinary research on AI ethics and regulation, datafication of society, and algorithmic governance could benefit from adopting access to justice as a vantage point for bridging the different approaches in the context of administering justice. To this end, we explore technological, legal, and societal intersections to demonstrate how law, social sciences, and algorithm studies could benefit from a historically more informed and holistic approach facilitating more “cost-effective” interdisciplinary research collaboration. Such approach could assist the substantive study of algorithmic fairness to contribute actionable systemic solutions on what we perceive as systemic challenges. We propose utilizing access to justice as a boundary object for interdisciplinary dialogue over algorithmic fairness while respecting the epistemic diversity of disciplines.