The White House’s Executive Order On The Safe Secure And Trustworthy Development And Use Of Artificial-Intelligence (“EO”) addresses many equity and civil rights issues with AI and mandates certain actions to ensure that AI advances equity and civil rights. The Fact Sheet accompanying the EO summarizes some issues and actions directing various agencies to:

• Provide clear guidance to landlords, Federal benefits programs, and federal contractors to keep AI algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination
• Address algorithmic discrimination through training, technical assistance, and coordination between the Department of Justice and Federal civil rights offices on best practices for investigating and prosecuting civil rights violations related to AI
• Ensure fairness throughout the criminal justice system by developing best practices on the use of AI in sentencing, parole and probation, pretrial release and detention, risk assessments, surveillance, crime forecasting and predictive policing, and forensic analysis

These high level goals are addressed extensively and in much greater detail throughout the EO. Other equity and civil rights issues on which the EO focuses include the need for protections in critical areas such as hiring and workplace monitoring, healthcare, financial services, education, housing, law, and transportation. It finds it necessary to hold those developing and deploying AI accountable to standards that protect against unlawful discrimination and abuse, including in the criminal justice system and the Federal Government.

Sheppard Mullin’s 110+ lawyer AI team is committed to playing a role in combatting AI and algorithmic-based bias and discrimination.

See here for a more detailed discussion of the issues and actions covered in the EO.