Artificial Intelligence and machine learning allow municipalities new ways to better provide services to the public. However concerns about privacy and economic bias abound. According to the ACLU of Northern California, "These technologies can cause real harm to people. They have the power to exacerbate racial or economic inequality, or turn your city into a panopticon in service of a surveillance state. Like other tools, their effectiveness depends on when, where, and how they are used. City planners and other officials looking into smart initiatives have a duty to thoroughly investigate the technologies in question and any costs and risks that might accompany its use." Join us on May 11 at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics when ACLU attorney Jake Snow will elaborate on the ethical pitfalls of smart city initiatives and how best to use these emerging technologies.
Jake Snow
Technology and Civil Liberties Attorney
Jake Snow is a Technology and Civil Liberties Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, where he works on a variety of issues, including consumer privacy, surveillance, and the preservation of free speech online.
Before joining the ACLU of Northern California, Jake was a Staff Attorney in the San Francisco office of the Federal Trade Commission, where his work covered the full breadth of the FTC’s mission. His consumer-protection work resulted in millions of dollars of judgments for consumers in false-advertising actions. Jake’s healthcare antitrust work preserved competition between health care providers in Central and Southern California
Before joining the ACLU, Jake was a patent litigator at Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe.
Jake also served as a law clerk to Ronald M. Whyte, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California. He holds a B.A. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from Georgetown Law.