New Database Showcases How Algorithms Are Rewriting Government Policies Around the US

v3rgEz writes: Every day government decisions from bus routes to policing used to be based on limited information and human judgment. Governments now use the ability to collect and analyze hundreds of data points everyday to automate many of their decisions.

The non-profit MuckRock, in partnership with Rutgers Institute for Information Policy and Law, has a database detailing how local governments across the U.S. are adopting algorithmic decision making, as well as an open collection of contracts, manuals, and other primary source documents detailing how these programs are implemented and overseen. "Automation and artificial intelligence could improve the notorious inefficiencies of government," argues one page at Muckrock, "and it could exacerbate existing errors in the data being used to power it..."

"Does handing government decisions over to algorithms save time and money? Can algorithms be fairer or less biased than human decision making? Do they make us safer?"

convenient for some politicians

[swell]

This can be a convenient way of ignoring certain underrepresented social groups. An algorithm may not understand the special needs of a neighborhood of immigrants and it may not recognize that another neighborhood is 'special' and populated with wealthy people. An algorithm allocating school funding may not understand that one community has a much higher birth rate than another. The people affected by the algorithm will never know how it came to various conclusions. An algorithm may be a convenient way to r

Re:convenient for some politicians

[alvinrod]

Sounds like a good reason to stop centralizing power and to shift authority to make big decisions away from the federal government and put it in the hands of the states, cities, or even communities that understand their own unique issues and circumstances. Then it doesn't matter as much whether it's a human or an algorithm, because the people most affected by it have the greatest ability to change it.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

That's fine and dandy until you get a traditionally racist state like Mississippi or Tennessee making 'policies' that bring back Jim Crow-esque ways of doing things.

Use an algorithm for voting districts

[Snotnose]

This should be an easy one. Give it a map of all major roads, highways, rivers, etc. Give it a list of where people live. Then let the computer figure out the voting districts. Idea is to minimize the distance from any voter to the center of the district.

Note what you don't feed the algorithm. Race. Party preference. Income. Just people and natural dividing lines.

Re:

[G00F]

people tend to live around like groups. But that doesnt mean bias, and that is a little bit of what you want when voting anyways.

What we the people want, is to stop the redistributing of one party to be water down amounts the other party to insure forever grantee election of one party.

Dems would gerrymander 7 predominate dem voting low neighborhoods with 3 neighborhoods. And Reps would do just the opposite. Of course sprinkle a few all of the apposing in one district to keep their party dominate overall.

S

Re:

[Attila Dimedici]

The courts have ruled that states must have a certain minimum number of districts where specific minorities are the majority. These rulings make your solution illegal.

Gov't by Computer

[imperious_rex]

One small step at a time, we're getting closer to computerized government.Maybe in the 25th century [youtube.com], our AI overlords will do a better job of governing. We've seen how well the meat bags have run things.

Waste, fraud and abuse of Govt cant be eliminated.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Fact 1: Every dollar that government wastes is a dollar of undeserved income to someone.

Fact 2: If a corporation is wasting money like this, people benefiting by that waste would not be able to nominate the board of directors to that company.

Fact 3: Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that corporations are people and they have all the rights of flesh and blood citizens including free speech and money is speech too,

Fact 4: Beneficiaries of government waste, fraud and abuse actively participate in the ele

Re:

[Attila Dimedici]

Well, your "Fact 3" is false. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that people do not lose their rights just because they have formed a corporation. In fact the primary case on this was one where the Supreme Court ruled that you could not restrict people from forming a corporation for the purpose of spreading a political message.

Who checks the Algorithms?

[RotateLeftByte]

What if they are deliberately skewed towards the policies that the current POTUS wants?
What happens is there is a change of POTUS in November?
How long will it take for the [cough][cough] algorithms to be adjusted to fit the aims of the new administration?

etc
etc
etc

This is a slippery slope.

Same song different verse

[sjames]

This is just a more elaborate version of that bane of the mid '70s "Well THE COMPUTER says...". (Yes, you could actually hear the bold italic all caps). And it's subject to the same failings.

Algorithms are only as good as their developer. They may be far from optimal and they may fail utterly on corner cases. They also leave no human with a sense of responsibility for the outcome, and too often result in nobody having the needed authority to change an outcome no matter how obviously wrong. It's everything

Algorithms are not AI

[louzer]

I didn't know that most business people thought Algorithms are AI. It is a cool little misunderstanding that marketing people are hijacking effectively.

Good decisions are based on insight ...

[gweihir]

... not on numbers. Seems making bad decisions got even easier this way. Explains quite a lot though.

the one useful feature this should have

[sxpert]

these things should be designed so as to prevent corruption happening.
this is the one thing this could bring to government

Re:

[Attila Dimedici]

No, what it will bring to government is to make it easier to HIDE corruption, and harder to root it out once it is discovered.

Are there humans reviewing all this?

[Rick Schumann]

Or are they just rubber-stamping what the 'algorithms' output?