Confronting Black Boxes: A Shadow Report of the New York City Automated Decision System Task Force

In 2017, New York City became the first US jurisdiction to create a task force to come up with recommendations for government use of Automated decision systems (ADS). Possessing one of the largest municipal budgets and some of the largest municipal agencies in the world, New York City was thought to be an ideal laboratory for evaluating the actual risks, opportunities, and obstacles involved in government use of ADS, as well as the feasibility of interventions and solutions primarily explored in academic research. Confronting Black Boxes is a community powered shadow report that provides a comprehensive record of what happened during the Task Force’s review process and offers other municipalities and governments robust recommendations based on collective experience and current research insights on government use of ADS.

Cite as: Rashida Richardson, ed., “Confronting Black Boxes: A Shadow Report of the New York City Automated Decision System Task Force,” AI Now Institute, December 4, 2019.