Fourth Amendment AI
An image depicting a computer node map of 40 AI response choices around the Fourth Amendment.
Access description (ALT)
An image depicting a computer-generated node map visualizes 40 distinct AI response choices related to the Fourth Amendment. Each node represents a different path the AI, named Amelia, might take when responding to questions about search and seizure protections—rights that extend to incarcerated individuals, including in digital and telephonic communication. This map is documentation from research into Amelia’s decision-making framework and its entanglement with carceral technologies. The image is contextualized by the 2021 partnership between Securus Technologies—a major provider of prison phone services—and Amelia, an AI platform marketed as improving customer experience and organizational efficiency. Notably, in 2014, Securus experienced a breach involving over 70 million call records from incarcerated individuals across 37 states. This raises critical questions about how incarcerated people’s time on the phone may be repurposed to train or refine AI systems, linking surveillance, efficiency, and carceral labor under the guise of digital service.