Can Artificial Intelligence Prevent Innate Racial Bias?

Despite having a $12 billion budget and being located adjacent to Silicon Valley, San Francisco doesn't always take advantage of the ways in which tech can improve civic life or the work of its city employees. But there is one office that is pushing the envelope and collaborating with programmers, nonprofits, and computer scientists with the vital goal of improving its criminal justice practices. Just last month District Attorney Geroge Gascón announced that a partnership with Code for America had enabled his office to clear all old marijuana convictions made defunct with the passage of Proposition 64. And on Wednesday, he shared the news that a new collaboration with Stanford was in the works, to employ artificial intelligence as a means of mitigating implicit racial bias among his staff. If the words "artificial intelligence" combined with "criminal justice system" give you goosebumps, you're not alone.