As corporate America pivots to AI, consumers rejected for loans, jobs
Al Jazeera
New York City – Rachel S lives in a walkable neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York. Most days she is able to live comfortably without a car. She works remotely often but occasionally she needs to go into the office. That’s where her situation gets a bit challenging. Her workspace is not easily accessible by public transportation.
Because she doesn’t need to drive often she applied for the car-sharing platform Zipcar to fulfill her occasional need. The application process is pretty fast allowing consumers to get on the road using its fleet of cars relatively quickly.
Unfortunately, that was not the case for Rachel. As soon as she pressed the submit button she was deemed ineligible by the artificial intelligence software the company uses. Puzzled about the outcome, Rachel got in touch with the company’s customer service team.
After all, she has no demerits that would suggest she’s an irresponsible driver. She has no points on her licence. The only flump was a traffic ticket she received when she was seventeen years old and that citation was paid off years ago.
Although the traffic citation has since been rectified, now in her thirties she is still dealing with the consequences.
