Public Procurement for Responsible AI? Understanding U.S. Cities' Practices, Challenges, and Needs

Thus, most public-sector AI systems used today are developed by and acquired from private vendors. A growing number of academic and advocacy efforts have pointed out how AI systems procured in the public sector have predominantly targeted narrowly defined notions of efficiency and performance enhancements, resulting in adverse effects that disparately impact marginalized communities[18, 37, 46, 50, 86, 96]. While such incidents have exposed flaws in individual AI systems, they highlight deeper issues in how AI is acquired, used, and governed in the public sector. The AI procurement process encompasses decisions of which AI tools to ask for, adopt or reject, and the manner in which they are developed and deployed: decisions of critical importance for communities who may be harmed by AI. Such decisions not only influence the performance and risks posed by AI systems, but also play a significant role in shaping broader governance practices and ethical standards by which AI operates in the public sector. Interestingly, there is a long history of governments adapting their public procurement practices to enact social change, e.g., by creating processes that prioritize minority-owned businesses [62],