Earlier this spring, a team of data scientists and technology fanatics in the Milwaukee, WI region used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the outcome of foreclosure policies and procedures in Milwaukee County, aiming to identify potential inequity, bias, and racism.
What is AI? the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. (Source)
Many local governments are looking to become more aware of what their role is in addressing systematic racism. A recent example of this is in Pittsburgh, PA, where the task force organized by Pitt's Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security will examine algorithms used by Allegheny County in human service and criminal justice settings for potential bias. Milwaukee County, Wis., is looking to the power of AI to help identify and reduce inadvertent bias and inequities in its policymaking.
In 2020, Milwaukee County passed an ordinance to treat racism as a “public health crisis.” The ordinance included a call to “track and analyze data to better understand the impact of County services and find solutions accordingly.”
According to SAS CIO Lynn Fyhrlund, Milwaukee County found that in many ways the causes are systemic, pointing to redlining as one issue that has left a lasting impact on society today.
And while this complex issue is without a one-size-fits-all solution, Fyhrlund further explained that one way the county hopes to address the causes is by analyzing policies and ordinances with AI and machine learning (ML) to better understand unintended regional impacts.
Team MKE Equity is part of greater efforts from the government, businesses, and the area’s tech community to find solutions for inequalities. Team MKE Equity participated in the 2022 SAS Hackathon, a monthlong event sponsored by analytics company SAS and Microsoft. Hackathon teams from around the world collaborate with experts and SAS mentors to address big challenges in business and government and use the hackathon as an incubator for innovation. The 2022 hackathon's MKE Equity team, led by Fyhrlund and with members from the Milwaukee county, SAS and SolasAI, worked together with data scientists and a SAS mentor through weekly meetings to analyze various data sets across different county systems, with an emphasis on foreclosure data.
What is the SAS Hackathon? During the SAS Hackathon, teams of participants collaborate and compete to develop the best solutions to a business or humanitarian challenge using SAS technology. Unlike many hackathons where participants meet in person for a couple days, the SAS Hackathon was all-digital and spanned one month. Teams had access to a learning portal and a SAS mentor. Hackathon teams can create potentially viable applications and products for the marketplace that SAS will assist in developing and commercializing in collaboration with the team.
Milwaukee county’s initial plan was to use AI and machine learning technology to search for instances of bias in the language of policies and procedures related to foreclosure. But as Fyhrlund learned, the impact of those policies and any bias within them is revealed through the related data. For example, the impact of policy wording and any subsequent inequities may be quantified by the number of foreclosures occurred.
The technology used was SAS Viya Suite for analytics and AI, hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform. SAS head of smart cities partnerships, James Caton explained, “They found open-source data on foreclosure rates in the county. They use other information — demographic information, ZIP code information, etc. — to then focus in on foreclosure rates by socio-demographic [data] and geography in the county, the neighborhoods in which those happened and the demographic data of those affected.”
Fyhrlund’s advice for other entities looking to embark on their own policy analysis project is to focus on the data — know how data is collected, where it is stored and how it is going to be used.
At Extract, we know that when it comes to data, privacy concerns are likely to come up, so organizations should focus on sensitivity and ensuring that any data use follows privacy guidelines. We also understand and support the importance of making sure the use of AI tools is ethical.
If your agency has documents with sensitive information that needs redacting, or you have a flow of documents you need automatically indexed, please reach out to Extract, and we’d be happy to show you how our secure software can automate your data and document workflow needs.
Sources:
Pittsburgh Task Force Examines Local Gov Algorithms for Bias (govtech.com)
https://www.sas.com/en_us/news/press-releases/2022/may/ai-fights-discrimination-sas-hackathon.html
About the Author: Taylor Genter
Taylor is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.