The Accuracy-Explainability Trade-off, the Right to Explanation, and the Implications for Organisations

Abstract

Abstract Algorithms increasingly shape access to employment, credit, healthcare, and justice, yet the basis on which they do so is often opaque. A growing literature argues that affected individuals have a right to explanation, grounded in their interest in informed self-advocacy: the ability to understand and respond to decisions that bear on their life prospects. We examine whether this interest can sustain such a right. Explanations that serve self-advocacy must be reliable (truth-tracking) and verifiable (open to independent check). We show that in open-ended decision environments, where evaluative criteria must be discovered rather than stipulated in advance, reliability and verifiability conflict with accuracy. This trade-off arises in human decision-making and has a structural analogue in AI systems. Because requiring thick explanation would systematically reduce the quality of decisions, the self-advocacy interest cannot by itself ground a general right. Where thick explanation is nonetheless owed, it is justified by different grounds: legality, fairness, and trust. We draw out implications for how organisations should structure their obligations.

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