Impact Assessment

Impact Assessment refers to a specific type of transparency report designed to help stakeholders assess the societal impact—both harms and benefits—of an AI system; it is generally created and reviewed before a system is put into use.

The AI Impact Assessment is about the impact of the use of an AI system on users and non-users that may be affected by the system. To properly evaluate these impacts, all stakeholders must be pre-emptively identified—that is, the specific use case and context of deployment must be known (as opposed to just knowing what the underlying models are and not exactly how they'll be used).

The goal of AI impact assessment is to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed in a responsible and ethical manner, maximizing their potential benefits while minimizing their potential risks.