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The Dangers of Automating Social Programs


wheelchair on crumbling path, illustration

Credit: The Verge

Ask poverty attorney Joanna Green Brown for an example of a client who fell through the cracks and lost social services benefits they may have been eligible for because of a program driven by artificial intelligence (AI), and you will get an earful.

There was the "highly educated and capable" client who had had heart failure and was on a heart and lung transplant wait list. The questions he was presented in a Social Security benefits application "didn't encapsulate his issue" and his child subsequently did not receive benefits.


 

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