AI chatbots with programmed bias have replaced the civil service. AI sets policy, filters public input, and decides reality from within a black box. Today we, with our client @peer.org, are using FOIA to break into that black box 1/x
Today, PEER filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with EPA seeking records related to the use of AI within its workforce and regulatory programs.
https://ow.ly/o34650YpFro
#AI #FOIA
We intend to make these requests a model for researchers and journalists looking at AI in other agencies, how they tick, and who gets to decide that. We will be placing the requests on our website and I am happy to discuss their methodology with anyone who is interested in filing their own
That's why it is so necessary to poke around a little bit to see how these systems are actually influencing agency science. Here's our three main tranches, focusing on chemical safety, AI bias, and workplace surveillance.
At EPA, these programs are being used to organize and direct chemical safety reviews. Amazon has been bragging about it. But not about how they actually work. aws.amazon.com/blogs/public....
in March, the Trump Administration’s NIST removed “AI safety,” “responsible AI,” and “AI fairness” from the list of expected skills for members of the US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (“AISI”). It also redefined "bias" to mean "says things the white house doesn't like"
The uncanny magic of AI is its scientific-sounding solutions that read naturally to laypersons. Political appointees are generalists: they direct the work of experts to fulfill political directives. When the experts disagree, they turn to the chatbot. The chatbot always says yes
As we've heard from MIT, "95% of organizations are getting zero return" on their investment into AI deployments. But when you are trying to deface government, zero return is the intended value. mlq.ai/media/quarte... (mirror link)
Study after study shows these tools increase bias, worsen decisional quality, damage office morale, and give organizational leaders delusions of grandeur about their effects. They don't speed anything up but mistakes and consequences
These tools are reflections of agency policy written in code. Their system prompts and config files dictate outcomes more than policy memos or executive orders possibly could. But we have not seen them. But FOIA grants a right to know what our government is up to.
Agency AI tools spy on employees, slant decisionmaking, filter undesirable and inconvenient scientific studies, and ignore public comments on rulemaking. Trump's "AI Action Plan" to "reject radical climate dogma" cannot fairly set policy, but it is every day.
AI chatbots with programmed bias have replaced the civil service. AI sets policy, filters public input, and decides reality from within a black box. Today we, with our client @peer.org, are using FOIA to break into that black box 1/x
Reporting isn't doxxing
Public records aren't espionage
MyPillow isn't a newspaper
Particularly surprised we have to argue that last point
Used to be you could make a living in agitation
Involved in Construction
&
"Involved in construction, if ya know what I mean"
Either DHS told Deloitte to build their new "Secure Release" FOIA portal to be explicitly user-hostile or just awarded the contract knowing Deloitte would make it like that anyway. Either way I am not a fan
'UNIMAGINABLE CRUELTY': Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointeee from NY, thrashes DHS' treatment of a man who came to the US at 9 as an abuse/neglect victim, has no criminal record and became a college grad.
"The laws of decency condemn such villainy." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Applaud the suit, sadly the only way to get anything under FOIA anymore is to sue but I'm glad to see newsrooms willing to go to court for free information
"it turns out we're breaking so many laws we will have to shut down from all the litigation, please make it legal for me to kill thousands of your residents or we might employ a few hundred less"
Texas sued Dow Chemical for polluting the Gulf of Mexico and now regulators are considering cutting them a permit so they can legally spew microplastics into the water.
Shit is bleak, folks.
Reza Pahlavi probably has some complex feelings about this statement
Good Lord the youths are hanging out in public spaces by the ball park
Fun fact: the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, built in the mid-1920s, was dubbed "the Mussolini room" by its designer because it was intentionally modeled after Rome's Chigi Palace that was occupied at the time by Il Duce.
Hunkered down in the MaL situation nook over a live Twitter feed for the word "Iram"
Whose Information is it anyway? Join the D.C. Open Government Coalition at 5:30 on Thursday, March 19 at the MLK Library for our annual #sunshineweek event. Sign up here: luma.com/7mczqpqr
You gotta let me FOIA some of the press office-SOL records on this one for you
"It does not take a scholar of legal ethics to conclude that government lawyers should not be allowed to make up a violent and organized terrorist invasion of a major American city."
Read about our bar complaint: freedom.press/issues/doj-l...
Cone to our Sunshine Week event at the library! There is a non-zero chance "The FOIA Wizard" will be there 🧙👀
Always gotta watch when Boeb's hands are under the table
Practice tip: if you ever appear in public to talk about police surveillance abuse and intentional evasion of FOIA, try to NOT sit next to the police union president for it
