Make Your Property Documents More Race-Inclusive with AI

Amazon Web Services uses AI to scrub racist covenants to make the world a better place

The presence of racially discriminatory covenants in innumerable property deeds in the US is one stark example of how the real estate market has been plagued by racist practices for far too long. Now a real estate company is using AI to fight these racist issues that are long prevailed.

John L. Scott, a Seattle-based real estate company, is collaborating with Amazon Web Services to develop a smart document-processing technology that might make it simple for homeowners to spot racist covenants in their property title paperwork. It is known as the Driving Change program, and it streamlines the challenging procedure of legally changing property title paperwork. AI in real estate has made it possible for humans to identify their properties. The Global Impact Computing Team at AWS is developing an artificial intelligence solution that makes use of machine learning and will make it simple for homeowners to recognize their property.

These placed racial restrictions on who might purchase, sell, lease, or occupy real estate. Although these discriminatory covenants were made unenforceable by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the offensive wording that was originally included in property titles is frequently still present today. Finding it might be challenging, and removing it formally can be extremely tougher. It is a problem that will require a lot of people and time to tackle.

To help locate property titles that need to be changed, John L. Scott created a website that is powered by AWS. If a user enters their address and their property deed is digitised, the website uses Amazon Textract and Amazon Comprehend to evaluate and extract data from the documents using computer vision and optical character recognition.

The website will then give users the necessary form to submit to their county recorder's office if racist language is found and they wish to amend the document. Fields containing data about the property, such as the parcel number and a condensed legal description, will automatically be filled in. The website then asks the homeowner to schedule a meeting with an online notary to complete the modification.

According to McBride, the Driving Change effort involves more than just updating property deeds.

He cited problems including appraisal bias and racism inside the credit-scoring system, saying that they present a chance to discuss current events that are hindering Black Americans from building generational wealth. "It starts a discussion."