An investigation into an artificial intelligence tool aimed at helping match children in foster care to prospective adoptive parents found that the technology offered limited help with the process.
An AI tool called “Family-Match” that was embraced by several states to streamline the process of finding permanent adoptive homes for children in foster care has come up short, an Associated Press investigation found.
According to a report on the investigation by Voice of America, social workers in Florida, Georgia and Virginia implemented the tool but ultimately found that it “often led them to unwilling families.”
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Virginia and Georgia stopped using the tool after a trial run, the report said, noting that it only produced one or two adoptions per year. Meanwhile, Florida agencies reported having a better experience with the tool.
Phil Siegel, the founder of the Center for Advanced Preparedness and Threat Response Simulation (CAPTRS), told Fox News Digital that part of the problem with the system in the early stages could be a “lack of concrete data on what makes a successful and unsuccessful adoption that a model can use.”
“Models like this require an enormous amount of data that is comparable across many situations to work. Marriage matches have that level of data, which is why the models work better for those types of matching,” Siegel said. “Plus, the power of suggestion works much better in romance — because people can make the prediction come true if they believe it — than it would in adoption where the power of suggestion plays a lesser role.”
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Nevertheless, states seem willing to continue giving the platform a chance, realizing the potential that the technology has to improve an often cumbersome process.
While Georgia initially stopped its use of the Family-Match platform, the state recently reversed course…
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