Chapters 25 to 27 gave every management decision a record, every overseer a measure and every worker a path to contest. None of that helps a person who does not know that a system takes part in managing them, what it reads about them, how far its output goes without a person and who answers for the result. This chapter designs transparency to the managed: what workers, their representatives, the public and supervisors are told, when and by whom. It reads the relevant information duties as organisational and architectural implications, not legal advice, and turns them into two versioned artefacts: the worker information notice and the transparency register. It concerns M1 Direction, because workers must know when a system assigns and paces their work; M2 Evaluation, because they must know what is measured about them; M3 Consequence, because a person facing a decision about pay, hiring or access to work must know whose decision it is; and M5 Care, because being told, in a language one understands and by a person one can ask, is part of the duty of care.
Transparency has four audiences: the individual worker, who needs to know what the system does to them and what to do if it goes wrong; the workers' representatives, who need enough detail to negotiate or co-determine on behalf of everyone; the public, where the employer is a public authority; and supervisors and auditors, who need the full evidence under confidentiality.
Five objects of disclosure should be kept apart, because the law, the risk and the objections differ for each.
Primary topics explored
- Four audiences and five disclosures
- Transparency to the individual worker
- Transparency to workers' representatives
- Transparency to the public, supervisors and auditors
- The trade secret objection
- Transparency that nobody reads
About AI Boss
AI Boss is Book 7 of The Transformed Architecture. It examines what happens when artificial intelligence takes the manager's chair: algorithmic management of direction, evaluation, consequence, development and care, the effects on people, the management of AI agents, Europe's legal answer, and how to design an accountable AI boss, for European enterprises and public authorities.
It builds on the conclusions of Architecture as Code, AI Governance, AI Platform and Security, AI Red Team, AI Threat and The Transformed Security Architect.
Executives, line managers, HR and people leaders, works councils and trade unions, public employers, architects and AI governance leads, data protection and legal officers, procurement and programme leaders, and risk, compliance and audit.
Gunnar Nordqvist
Conceived, directed and published the books of The Transformed Architecture.
Continue with the full chapter
Chapter 28: Transparency to the Managed: What Workers Are Told, When and by Whom in AI Boss gives the detailed explanations, practical examples and implementation patterns behind this summary.
This whitepaper belongs to “Designing the Accountable AI Boss” and is one of 37 drawn from the manuscript.