Algorithms need a conscience in the public sector, according to author Virginia Eubanks. She has a book called Automating Inequality, and she argues that the poor are a testing ground for new technology that increases inequality.

To some extent, we’re used to companies making arbitrary decisions about our lives — mortgages, credit card applications, car loans, etc. Yet, these decisions are based almost entirely on straightforward factors of determination — like credit score, employment and income. In the case of algorithmic determination in social services, there is bias in the form of outright surveillance in combination with forced PII share imposed upon recipients.

The Department of Defense is looking for special AI to help with classification. The DOD issued a request for information (ROI) from the tech industry, looking for help.

Defense IT officials are seeking software that “must be able to make real-time decisions about the classification level of the information and an individual’s ability to access, change, delete, receive, or forward the information based on the credentials of the sending and/or receiving individual, facility, and system.”