De Liban’s work at TechTonic Justice focuses on ensuring low-income people are not unjustly losing work, housing, schooling and benefits due to AI decision-making. He previously worked for 12 years at Legal Aid of Arkansas, and while there, he assisted clients who had suddenly had their state-supported medical care cut. Several of these clients were living with permanent disabilities, and not due to any change in their health, the state significantly reduced the hours of home care they could receive. It turned out that this was the result of a newly implemented algorithmic decision-making system.
Government agencies, employers and landlords have been using algorithmic decision-making tools to make decisions that impact people’s lives for decades, De Liban explains, but the recent hype around AI could make these practices more widespread.
“The evolution in technology has also brought about an evolution in the organization of societal resources and a legitimacy to this sort of automated decision-making that is intensifying the use of these technologies for basically unjust means,” De Liban says. “If you're low-income, any introduction of sort of AI or algorithmic decision-making is bad news for you.”
Bruce, a computer engineer, founded the consulting firm ANB Advisory Group. She explains AI tools are always a product of designers and implementers.
At Duke Law School, Porcaro teaches classes on law and technology and researches the future of legal advice and the organizations who fill unmet demand for critical services. Currently, Porcaro’s team is doing an audit on an AI tool that Legal Aid of North Carolina is using to deliver customized legal information.
“I think it's really important that we—both as a field, but also as professionals with responsibility to our client—develop really robust methodologies to figure out if any of this is actually working,” says Porcaro.
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, YouTube, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.
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