Transparency: Motivations and Challenges

Abstract

Transparency is often deemed critical to enable effective real-world deployment of intelligent systems. Yet the motivations for and benefits of different types of transparency can vary significantly depending on context, and objective measurement criteria are difficult to identify. We provide a brief survey, suggesting challenges and related concerns, particularly when agents have misaligned interests. We highlight and review settings where transparency may cause harm, discussing connections across privacy, multi-agent game theory, economics, fairness and trust.