Q: What do school buses, desktop computers, and AI have in common? A: The same decades-old laws and processes apply when governments go to purchase them. Our new #FAccT2025 paper examines how these legacy public procurement norms apply to AI. 🧵 - ThreadSky

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narijohnson.bsky.social • 40 days ago

Q: What do school buses, desktop computers, and AI have in common?
A: The same decades-old laws and processes apply when governments go to purchase them.

Our new #FAccT2025 paper examines how these legacy public procurement norms apply to AI. 🧵

Comments

narijohnson.bsky.social•40 days ago

Understanding how purchasing works reveals how important decisions/private-public partnerships unfold.

New Orleans doesn't require oversight for acquisitions under cost thresholds – a decades-old purchasing norm that allowed Palantir donate their predictive policing technology without scrutiny.

narijohnson.bsky.social•40 days ago

Who has the power to make decisions about AI? It depends on how purchasing works!

In some cities, IT experts are brought into every purchase to ask critical questions about societal impacts.

In others, individual departments (police, schools, etc) have full discretion over their own purchases.

narijohnson.bsky.social•40 days ago

While procurement is typically characterized as a linear process, AI acquired through alternative purchasing pathways (donations, collabs, cooperative contracts) don't go to solicitation, skipping over important steps that most AI procurement reform efforts target.

narijohnson.bsky.social•40 days ago

Want to learn more about actions local governments are taking to adapt their existing procurement practices when buying AI? Check out our manuscript online: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.04994

narijohnson.bsky.social•40 days ago

One key aim throughout this project was prioritizing translation: supporting government employees as stakeholders in protecting the public interest. One output is a white paper for public sector workers:

https://www.cyber.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/AI/Procuring%20Public-Sector%20AI.pdf

siree.sh•39 days ago

I love this frame!! Excited to read this paper post NeurIPS deadline!

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