contestability

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Contestability is the effective standing of those affected by a regime to understand, challenge and obtain correction or repair of its decisions. In the corpus it requires practical pathways, intelligible information and consequential response. Disclosure or a nominal appeal does not suffice when persons remain unable to change what governs them, and accuracy alone does not supply answerability.

Explanation

RB3 places contestability among infraethical design constraints: persons must remain participants in a shared world rather than endpoints of computation. Transparency must be intelligible, and the regime must remain revisable. These requirements concern the arrangement around a system, not only its ability to generate an explanation.

AB’s constitutional account preserves the affected person’s access to correction and exit. A procedure may exist on paper while leaving the practical relation unchanged. The proposed subentry therefore keeps formal availability distinct from an avenue through which contrary evidence can actually alter an outcome or governing rule.

The author’s standard also survives improved prediction: even a well-supported forecast does not authorize removing standing, exit or correction. Model dispositions can assist, but judgment and redress need institutional support. Pasquale’s critique of opaque scoring remains a named antecedent rather than the whole source of this broader requirement.

Scope and attribution

Retain the normative governance requirement without treating it as author approval of a particular procedure.

AB — The Actual Book

Practical standing and correction exceed a paper appeal or predictive score.

Occurrence locators: 167, 168, 183, 188, 192, 193, 197; Notes: 247; Appendix: 277, 279, 280, 281, 285, 287, 288, 289.

PB — The Possible Book

The constitutional formulation gives affected persons practical exit and correction.

Occurrence locators: 64.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Infraethical design preserves intelligibility, contestation and revision.

Occurrence locators: 141, 174, 178, 179, 181, 182, 189, 190, 191, 192, 196, 198, 199, 200, 203, 219, 241, 242, 243, 248, 249, 250, 255, 260, 261, 262, 265, 266, 267, 272, 274, 279, 280, 281, 282, 287, 288, 291, 292, 294, 295, 297, 299, 305, 306, 308, 309, 311, 312, 313, 317, 318, 319, 322, 324; Case Regimes table: 323.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.