Purpose
The purpose is to let a creator define, measure and communicate how bias is used in the system, and to show the practices behind that claim.
What clause 1.2 asks
The audience is anyone who creates an autonomous intelligent system. The aim is to give them a way to say what role bias plays in that system, to measure that role, and to explain it to the people who use the system and to the authorities that regulate it. A further aim is to demonstrate that accepted practice shaped the design, the build, the tests and the assessment, so that harm to affected people is avoided. Communication is part of the aim, not an extra.
Why it matters
The purpose explains why the record matters as much as the model. A team can test a model thoroughly and still fail the purpose if it cannot say what bias it intended, what bias it found and what it told users. The purpose also sets the audience for the communication: users and regulators, not only internal engineering. That makes the values statement and the boundary statement part of the deliverable, not optional commentary.
What good looks like
Write a purpose statement for each system in plain language. It should name the decisions, the wanted bias that helps the decision, the unwanted bias the team is trying to prevent, and the route by which users and a regulator would be told. Test the statement on someone outside the project. If they cannot repeat what the system is for and what bias means in it, the statement is not yet usable.
Evidence an assessor asks for
The assessor will ask who received the communication and when. A purpose statement with no route and no date is an internal aspiration, not evidence of the purpose being met.
- Purpose statement A one-page statement naming the decisions, the wanted bias and the unwanted bias
- Communication route The channel, owner and review date for telling users and regulators how bias is handled
- Practice map A map from the design, development, testing and evaluation practices to the clause that supports each
- Audience record The named user groups and the regulator or authority that would receive the communication
Where it commonly fails
- Bias is treated as a model metric only, with no communication to users
- The purpose statement lists fairness principles but not the decisions the system makes
- Regulators are named generically, with no named authority or route
What to do before publication
Write the purpose statement before the values statement in clause 4.3, so the values work has a defined subject and audience.