Automated systems may cause discrimination due the use of imbalanced datasets or how they screen applicants. Image: Giulio Benzin/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe EEOC has joined with three other agencies—the Justice Department, the FTC and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau—in a joint statement of intent to enforce their authority under civil rights and consumer protection laws to violations arising from the use of artificial intelligence and other automated systems.
“Private and public entities use these systems to make critical decisions that impact individuals’ rights and opportunities, including fair and equal access to a job, housing, credit opportunities, and other goods and services. These automated systems are often advertised as providing insights and breakthroughs, increasing efficiencies and cost-savings, and modernizing existing practices. Although many of these tools offer the promise of advancement, their use also has the potential to perpetuate unlawful bias, automate unlawful discrimination, and produce other harmful outcomes,” said a joint statement.
Automated systems may cause discrimination, the statement said, due their use of “unrepresentative or imbalanced datasets, datasets that incorporate historical bias, or datasets that contain other types of errors. Automated systems also can correlate data with protected classes, which can lead to discriminatory outcomes.”
“Developers do not always understand or account for the contexts in which private or public entities will use their automated systems. Developers may design a system on the basis of flawed assumptions about its users, relevant context, or the underlying practices or procedures it may replace,” it adds.
The EEOC noted for example that in addition to its enforcement activities on discrimination related to AI and automated systems, it has issued a technical assistance document on how the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to the use of software, algorithms, and AI to make employment-related decisions about job applicants and employees.
The Justice Department meanwhile cited its position that the Fair Housing Act applies to algorithm-based tenant screening services, while the CFPB said that consumer financial laws apply regardless of the technology being used, and the FTC said that AI tools can “incentivize users to rely on increasingly invasive forms of commercial surveillance.”
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