Zillow has created the Fair Housing Classifier
for large language models (LLMs) to help others in real estate,
civil rights and technology sectors safeguard AI-powered real
estate conversations
SEATTLE, May 21, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- Today, Zillow is releasing its open-source
Fair Housing Classifier, which establishes guardrails to promote
responsible and unbiased behavior in real estate conversations
powered by large language model (LLM) technology.
Many AI tools disregard fair housing requirements and, when
deployed, can perpetuate bias and undermine the progress achieved
in advocating for fair housing. Zillow's Fair Housing Classifier
focuses on mitigating the risk of illegal steering — the practice
of influencing a buyer's choice of communities based upon the
buyer's legally protected characteristics under federal law.
"Since 2006, Zillow has used AI to bring transparency to home
shoppers, powering tools like the Zestimate," said Josh Weisberg, senior vice president of
Artificial Intelligence. "We've made it our business to increase
transparency in real estate — open sourcing this classifier
demonstrates that advancements in technology do not need to come at
the expense of equity and fairness for consumers. We're offering
free and easy access so that others in civil rights, tech and real
estate sectors can use it, collaborate and help improve it."
The Fair Housing Classifier acts as a protective measure, to
encourage more equitable conversations with AI technology. It
detects questions that could lead to discriminatory responses about
legally protected groups in real estate experiences, such as search
or chatbots. The classifier identifies instances of noncompliance
in the input or the output, leaving the decision of how to
intervene in the hands of system developers.
"In today's rapidly evolving AI landscape, promoting safe,
secure and trustworthy AI practices in housing and lending is
becoming increasingly important to protect consumers against
algorithmic harms," said Michael
Akinwumi, Ph.D., chief responsible AI officer at the
National Fair Housing Alliance. "Zillow's open-source approach sets
an admirable precedent for responsible innovation. We encourage
other organizations and coalition groups to actively participate,
test, and enhance the model and share their findings with the
public."
The decision to offer the Fair Housing Classifier as open-source
underscores Zillow's commitment to transparency, equity and fair
housing in real estate. Organizations looking to adopt the Fair
Housing Classifier can access the code and comprehensive framework
on GitHub. Trusted partners who would like to contribute to and
enhance the classifier can reach out to the email alias on the
GitHub page, through which they can request access to training data
and a pretrained model, after presenting a genuine use case. This
transparency is key to encouraging contributions to improve the
model. Improvements to the Fair Housing Classifier can be submitted
via the standard request process on GitHub.
Given the hundreds of millions of Americans searching for
housing online today, it's vital that people are equipped with
tools to make getting home more equitable and transparent — and
less daunting. Younger generations, renters, LGBTQ+ people and
people of color are more likely to say fair housing is an issue
facing them and their families, according to a recent Zillow survey
of 26 major U.S. metropolitan areas. Although fair housing laws —
which ensure equal and nondiscriminatory access to housing — have
been in place for nearly 60 years, discrimination remains a
stubborn factor in housing, Zillow's latest Housing Aspirations
Report shows. The survey found a majority of respondents (57%)
reported experiencing some kind of housing discrimination, with
groups such as LGBTQ+ populations reporting discrimination at
higher rates. However, overall, only 42% of respondents reported
that fair housing impacts them or their families, highlighting how
much work is needed to continue to educate people about their
rights under fair housing laws.
Making the Fair Housing Classifier available as open-source is
just one way that Zillow is innovating its pro-consumer approach.
Earlier this year, Zillow's cross-functional ethical AI team
published AI principles, which highlight the company's commitment
to prioritizing equitable outcomes in real estate.
About Zillow Group:
Zillow Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:
Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for
more and more people. As the most visited real estate website in
the United States, Zillow and its
affiliates help people find and get the home they want by
connecting them with digital solutions, dedicated partners and
agents, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting
experiences.
Zillow Group's affiliates, subsidiaries and brands include
Zillow®, Zillow Premier Agent®, Zillow Home Loans℠, Trulia®, Out
East®, StreetEasy®, HotPads®, ShowingTime+℠, Spruce® and
Follow Up Boss®.
All marks herein are owned by MFTB Holdco, Inc., a Zillow
affiliate. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS
#10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). © 2023 MFTB Holdco, Inc., a
Zillow affiliate.
(ZFIN)
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zillow-providing-open-source-technology-to-promote-fair-housing-in-ai-powered-real-estate-conversations-302150549.html
SOURCE Zillow