2026 Cyber ​​Security Week

[Editor’s Note] Currently, artificial intelligence technology is accelerating its penetration into various economic and social fields, and the accompanying security risks and ethical challenges are becoming increasingly prominent. During the National Cyber ​​Security Publicity Week in 2026, Guangming.com and Popular Science China launched a series of popular science videos on AI technology ethics to guide the public to rationally understand the logic of technology, uphold the concept of algorithms for good, and jointly build a network security ecosystem.

AI gives you scores where you can’t see it? Credit evaluation, job search screening, insurance pricing… there is often an algorithm behind these important points that determine your life. A number may determine whether you can get a loan, whether you can get an interview, or whether you can buy insurance at a more reasonable price. Algorithms are getting smarter and smarter, and more and more people are being made decisions by algorithms, but the “decided” party often doesn’t even get an explanation. Fortunately, the rules are making up for this lesson.

In the past, for an evaluation that determined your life, you could at least ask “why.” The interviewer will tell you where you are lacking, and the bank will explain why your credit is insufficient. But now, more and more of these decisions are left to algorithms, which are often a black box. You don’t know what data it looked at, what rules it used, or how it calculated the score step by step.

A more insidious problem is that the data itself may be biased. There may be hidden biases in past data records. If these problems are not discovered and corrected during the training and evaluation process, the AI ​​model may learn these biases and reappear in subsequent decisions.

The result is: past biases may affect future judgments, causing some people to face unfair results, and when this process is hidden behind the algorithm, you don’t even know where to start with your appeal.

This is not an exaggeration. Algorithms are getting smarter and smarter, and more and more people are being made decisions by algorithms, but the “decided” party often doesn’t even get an explanation.

Fortunately, the rules are making up for this lesson.

Article 24 of the “Personal Information Protection Law” clearly stipulates: When decisions that have a significant impact on personal rights and interests are made through automated decision-making, individuals have the right to request explanations and the right to refuse to make decisions solely through automated decision-making.

Translated, this sentence means the two most basic rights: first, you have the right to know why the algorithm is determined as it is; second, you have the right to demand that you cannot just let the machine make the final decision. If necessary, someone must intervene to explain to you and give you a chance to review. Because the role of algorithms is to assist judgment, not to make decisions on behalf of people.

Why is this so important? Because the premise of fairness is transparency. For a decision that affects your rights and interests, if the reason and basis cannot be explained, it will be difficult to supervise and correct.

A system is out of control if something goes wrong and no one can explain it. We require algorithm transparency, not because we are demanding technology, but to maintain a bottom line – for any decision that affects your major rights and interests, the reasons must be clearly stated and there must be room for error correction.

Therefore, “the algorithm scores you, and you have the right to know why” is a right written into the law. It is a right that everyone should know and dare to claim.

The more powerful the technology, the more clearly this truth needs to be explained. The algorithm gives you a score, and you have the right to know the rules behind the score—this is the bottom line that everyone should abide by in the technological age.