Ban or Restrict Local Government Use of Harmful AI Technologies

Algorithmic decision systems are frequently sold to city agencies with promises of efficiency or cost reduction. Instead, algorithms are overwhelmingly used to reduce people’s access to critical and life-saving resources,1 from healthcare to unemployment assistance. These outcomes persist even when abiding by best-in-class mitigation techniques,2 leading to some decisions that are impossible to remedy after the fact. Local governments should avoid using AI and algorithmic decision systems, especially where critical decisions are made about people’s lives and livelihoods. 

Where AI technology is used by local agencies, governments must guarantee the right to opt out, the right to request a timely appeal, and the right to remedy decisions. This can be achieved through the following mechanisms:

Disclosures

Offer pre-decision disclosures that give individuals the right to opt out from the use of an AI system making decisions about them.

Timely Notification

Provide timely notification after a decision is made, including what decision or recommendation was made using AI, a clear description of the parameters and logic of how the AI impacted the decision or recommendation, and clear description of what personal information was used to make the decision, including both the input and output data.

Appeal

Provide timely and clear instructions for appealing the decision to a human reviewer, including the ability to correct any inaccurate information used in the decision.

Accessibility

All information must be delivered in an accessible format and language.

  1. Kevin De Liban, Inescapable AI: The Ways AI Decides How Low-Income People Work, Live, Learn, and Survive, TechTonic Justice, November 2024, 
    https://www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/inescapable-ai. ↩︎
  2. Eileen Guo, Gabriel Geiger, and Justin-Casimir Braun, “Inside Amsterdam’s High-Stakes Experiment to Create Fair Welfare AI,” MIT Technology Review, June 11, 2025, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/11/1118233/amsterdam-fair-welfare-ai-discriminatory-algorithms-failure. ↩︎