Attorney was presenter participant at artificial intelligence workshop in Berlin

Royal Oak civil rights attorney Jennifer Lord was a participant at a recent litigators artificial intelligence workshop sponsored by the Amsterdam-based Digital Freedom Fund (DFF) and the AI Now Institute at NYU Law School. The event, which was held in mid-November at the Berlin offices of Mozilla (developer of the Firefox web browser), included digital rights attorneys from the U.S., Europe and Latin America.

The two-day meeting brought together attorneys from three continents with experience challenging problematic algorithmic decision-making through the courts, litigators with interest in undertaking this work, as well as other participants with background in artificial intelligence policy work.

Lord’s presentation focused on a faulty algorithmic decision-making program which inflicted extensive harm to more than 40,000 Michigan residents who were falsely accused of benefits fraud by the State of Michigan’s AI-based program used to administrate its Unemployment Insurance Agency.

 The highly automated system, which was installed to reduce headcount and increase accuracy and efficiency, improperly rendered serious accusations and assessed huge fines and penalties without human input or oversight.

Lord, a partner with Pitt McGehee Palmer & Rivers in Royal Oak, serves as co-counsel in a class action lawsuit representing the thousands of Michigan residents falsely accused of fraud by the flawed AI-based administrative system.