5 stories of how the use of AI is impacting everyday life

Are you spending more money on groceries? Were you swiftly denied a necessary treatment? A job interview? A housing opportunity? A loan?

As governments, companies, and other organizations increasingly integrate AI tools, AI also becomes more integrated in our everyday lives—largely without our say or knowledge. And sometimes the harm of how it’s used is irreparable.

AI isn’t the cause of every challenge people face. But in many cases, it adds to existing problems by standardizing biases at-scale, reducing transparency, and making it more difficult to hold companies and governments accountable for harms. This is what happens when they thrust new technologies upon the public with little to no oversight or regulation.

To underline the need for change and help you understand when the use of AI might impact you, we rounded up five stories where we know AI was involved in harm.

1) Gene Lokken’s family had to pay $150,000 for necessary medical treatment

In 2022, 91-year-old Gene Lokken fractured his hip and ankle as a result of a fall. With his muscles “paralyzed and weak,” according to his doctors, he spent around six days in the hospital before being moved to a hospice care for a month to recover from his injuries, followed by physical therapy.

Unfortunately, Gene’s insurance provider, UnitedHealth Group, utilizes an AI-powered automated decision system to predict how long patients require care, which allegedly prematurely cuts off coverage for elderly patients, overriding doctors’ medical judgments and forcing families to either pay out of pocket or prematurely remove loved ones from care.

This is what happened to Gene and his family, who ended up paying $150,000 in medical expenses. Gene has since passed away, but his legacy lives on as his family fights for justice.

2) Nurse Ashley is forced to race to the bottom for wages

One of the purported benefits of being a contract worker is that you can determine your own schedule and payment terms. But that’s not how it actually works out for Ashley, a nursing assistant in rural Pennsylvania, who works through the ShiftKey app.

The app uses AI to arrange shifts for nurses at nearby healthcare facilities and determine pay. But how does that work exactly? Many gig apps like ShiftKey participate in personalized pay, where pay is determined by an algorithm that guesses the lowest amount nurses are willing to work for or encourages nurses to outbid each other in a race to the bottom for wages.

Ashley also spends a considerable amount of time on the app without being paid—bidding on shifts, updating her profile, and even “sending messages to the app about errors in her wages.” She ends up earning so little that she qualifies for Medicaid. 

3) Kevin is living on disability, and his power bills keep increasing

Kevin Stanley is a 57-year-old man living on disability in Baltimore. He used to work as a hotel manager before developing glaucoma and losing his sight. His energy bills have increased by about 80% over the past three years, putting pressure on his pocket.

The sharp increase in energy costs seems to be connected to Data Center Alley, an area an hour away from Kevin that’s dotted with data centers fueling the AI boom. These data centers require massive amounts of power, and a Bloomberg News analysis suggests that this is likely driving up energy prices for people living near data centers across the country.

For people like Stanley who already live off so little, this is unsustainable.

4) Mary Louis had to rent a more expensive apartment

In 2021, a property management company rejected Mary Louis’s housing application. She admittedly didn’t have the best credit score, but she had a great recommendation from her landlord of 17 years, who said that she always paid her rent on time, and a housing voucher that would guarantee some rent to the landlord.

So why did they reject her? An AI-powered tenant screening tool assigned her a score of 324; she needed to get at least a 443 to qualify. That was all the company would tell her, and there was no option to appeal.

Mary was left to rent a more expensive apartment where the management didn’t use an algorithmic tenant screening tool.

5) The Hackneys lost custody of their daughter

At seven months old, the daughter of Lauren and Andrew Hackney started refusing her bottles. Doctors reassured the Hackneys that babies could be fickle at times, but after a few days, the Hackneys decided to take their daughter to the hospital, where she was treated for dehydration. When their daughter finally recovered, the Hackneys asked about taking her home. Then, child welfare arrived, told the Hackneys they were negligent, and put their baby in foster care. 

The Hackneys, who both have mild developmental disabilities, allegedly fell victim to the biases of the Allegheny Family Screening tool, which provides recommendations to social workers to inform which families should be investigated for potential neglect. The tool uses data like race, zip code, disability, and use of public welfare benefits to flag potentially neglectful parents, and was found to have racial bias and bias against families with disabled parents and children.

To this day, they’re still going through the courts to get their daughter back.

Do you have a story you want to share?

These five stories serve as a reminder of what is at stake when discussing legislation and regulations around AI and the systems that channel this evolving technology to make money at the cost of people’s well-being.

Research shows that Americans are largely in support of regulations, but our government hasn’t shown up fully to meet the moment. In order to get them to step up, we need your help.

Can you share a story about the impact of AI on your life? Your story can help persuade legislators to back a people-first AI agenda. We know that coming forward can be risky, so we’ll work with you to give you whatever level of anonymity you need. 

Fill out the form below to meet with one of our organizers.