The justice system is awash in purported AI solutions—for everything from prisons to courtrooms. But how do we separate AI’s real promise from the hype? And how do we ensure the technology helps, rather than sets back, the cause of fairness and justice?

Roy Austin, Jr., is the former Vice President of Civil Rights at the tech giant, Meta. He was also a prominent official in the Department of Justice under President Obama. He now heads up the Howard Law Artificial Intelligence Initiative.

“We have this fantasy that there is a neutral in this world and that’s what we are aiming for,” Austin says. “But there is no neutral.”