By Lucia Walinchus
Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann reporting for the Eye on Ohio: The Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

Meredith Broussard notes in her book, "Artificial Unintelligence," that "AI" is a bit of a misnomer. True artificial intelligence means computers have finally achieved consciousness. Scientists are a long way away - if that is even possible.

Why then has "artificial intelligence" become ubiquitous? Major companies and the state of Ohio refer to AI as vital to speech recognition, self-driving cars and web searches. It's essentially become shorthand for various machine-learning methods to solve a problem which a human can't easily solve.

For example: a programmer has to code image-recognition software to identify dogs in pictures. How can the programmer explain to a computer what a dog is? Chihuahuas are dogs, and so are Great Danes. But not wolves, which look a lot like dogs, or foxes.

The programmer instead could use thousands of pictures of animals hand-labeled "dogs" and "foxes" and have an AI algorithm learn which are which. The computer compares patterns of each animal's eyes, nose and snout to see which sizes and shapes are a "dog." The code tells the computer to decide a shape, such as a dog ear, is more likely a dog.

As François Chollet and J.J. Allaire wrote in their book, Deep Learning with R, from a geometric standpoint, the computer is trying to see how to fold a piece of paper so that the maximum number of data points can be included.

Counterintuitively though, extremely high accuracy is not an end goal because of "overfitting." A model that follows data too closely might not be good at making predictions in new data it hasn't seen before. If your dog dataset has too few Chihuahuas and not enough Great Danes, you might miss bigger dogs later.

Machine learning is powerful because it flips the script on computer programming: instead of telling the machine what's important, programmers study the data points that influence various outcomes to see what's important. Then they test for better outcomes.

For the past year, Eye on Ohio has been working on an AI project to see how cities and land banks choose to take over decrepit properties. This effort involved hundreds of public-records act requests, 5,225 lines of code and countless hours of planning, researching, programming, writing, fact-checking and editing.

Countless articles chronicle rising housing prices. Eye on Ohio wanted to look at the opposite end of the spectrum: What happens to the worst housing? How does that impact people who are struggling?

In Ohio, the county keeps delinquent property lists showing which owners did not pay taxes the previous year - and how much they owe. An auditor's website lets anyone see property value and payment history.

Most delinquent taxpayers eventually pay back their taxes. But Eye on Ohio started here for several reasons.

First, it would be impractical to study every property in a county to see which might be eligible for a land bank. The delinquent-taxpayer list is a public record which represents virtually all decrepit properties in a county.

Second, delinquent property owners are the biggest funders of land banks in the first place. County Treasurers and Prosecutors split 5 percent of delinquent tax revenue between them in a delinquent tax and assessment collection fund (DTAC). When a county establishes a land bank, they use those funds. County commissioners can authorize up to 5 percent more.

Third, one of the stated goals of most land banks is to take perpetually delinquent properties and turn them over to responsible owners who pay their taxes.

When a taxpayer becomes delinquent, the Treasurer usually will set up a payment plan. If that fails, the government will sell their tax lien to a third party. But sometimes not even that is successful, particularly for abandoned properties where it can be difficult to first find an owner's heirs or successors in interest.

Land banks get properties in a variety of ways. Someone can give them a parcel outright or deed property in lieu of foreclosure. But usually, they remediate properties that are way behind on their taxes in the first place.

The thrust of the project is: Of all delinquent properties in a county, which ones go to the land bank? Each has a policy that essentially says, "We try to do the best we can with our limited budget." What exactly does that mean, mathematically?

Land banks are a great but very limited program. How do officials choose which of the relatively small number of properties they will foreclose upon or demolish?

During the height of the mortgage crisis, many counties got federal funds to supplement their budgets. That money is now largely gone. How will land banks treat rusting properties with a smaller budget?

Click here to look at the code for this open source project.

First in the series: How do public officials make Land Bank decisions? Artificial Intelligence may seek patterns

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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An Eau Claire resident is speaking out about how federal cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could affect his life and his family's.

Oliver Winn and his parents all live with disabilities. He said Medicaid has allowed him to have surgeries that have improved his quality of life to such a degree, he no longer needs a wheelchair. It also helps him pay for medication which would otherwise cost $5,000 a month. Winn described the forthcoming federal cuts to Medicaid and SNAP as "terrifying."

"It's going to change a lot of things for a lot of people, and I'm concerned for myself, I'm concerned for my family, my community," Winn explained. "Everyone is going to be affected by this and it's a very scary time to be living through."

It's estimated more than 276,000 people in Wisconsin could lose their Medicaid coverage and another 90,000 risk losing their SNAP benefits over the next decade.

One in eight people in Wisconsin depends on SNAP to help pay for groceries. Winn is one of them. Although he currently works overnight shifts, he noted he still needs SNAP to afford food for him and his child. Before he had Medicaid and SNAP, Winn added his high medical debts meant he struggled to keep up with food and housing expenses, which led him to become homeless.

"Because there's no way to balance trying to feed yourself, trying to pay off this debt and still have access to health care and rent," Winn stressed. "It's impossible, and I wish that the people writing these bills and enacting these policies could get a taste of the life that they're creating for other people."

Along with federal cuts, the Trump administration is implementing stricter work requirements for these programs in an effort to curb what it calls "welfare dependency." More than 45% of SNAP recipients in Wisconsin are in working families and the majority of Medicaid recipients in the state are part of the workforce.

Winn argued the rhetoric suggesting beneficiaries are lazy and unmotivated is not based in reality.

"We do and want to work," Winn emphasized. "Almost everyone I know is on Medicaid. My friends, my family that are capable of working are the hardest workers I know, because we have to work so hard to scrape out ends meet."


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The mayor of Lancaster, Pennsylvania is voicing concerns about the state budget delay, warning it could affect the city's more than 58,000 residents.

Lawmakers missed the June 30 deadline for the fourth year in a row.

Danene Sorace, mayor of Lancaster, said she is closely monitoring both the state budget and the federal transportation, housing, and urban development budget coming before Congress today, noting both have significant implications for the city.

"There's been a significant reduction in federal funds that are coming to the state," Sorace pointed out. "How the state, in a divided House and Senate, reconcile these reductions in federal funding for Medicaid and address the other issues at hand, specifically equitable school funding, is yet to be determined."

Gov. Josh Shapiro said the state budget talks are making progress and expects a deal soon.

Sorace added since the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" has passed and the state must deal with reduced federal funding, Lancaster will likely experience losses in health care access. She explained the city is fortunate to have strong hospitals and community health systems, which is not always the case in rural areas.

"I think that long term, the impacts are going to be potentially more damaging," Sorace observed. "For our rural brethren in other parts of Pennsylvania and across the country, we're more concerned about their access to health care."

The new law slashes Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding by $186 billion over the next decade, adding stricter work and reporting rules, threatening benefits for many Pennsylvanians.

Sorace emphasized food insecurity was already rising before the cuts and she now expects even more demand at local food pantries.

"Our nonprofit community is trying to figure out what the state is going to do to help fill those gaps," Sorace stressed. "Of course, we're very concerned about food insecurity, especially during the summer months, when kids aren't in school and don't have breakfast and lunch always available to them."

Sorace added she recently joined more than 200 mayors at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors to discuss key issues, including housing and public safety. She underscored cities across the country are making progress on public safety, highlighting Lancaster's achievement of its lowest homicide rate since 1983.


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While cuts to food support programs and Medicaid gained attention as the debate over the budget bill went on, there is also a long-term likelihood it will result in automatic spending cuts to Medicare.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the reconciliation bill is projected to add more than $3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. If the estimate is accurate, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act would require the executive branch to enact automatic spending cuts, including 4% annual cuts to Medicare starting in January, translating to around $500 billion in cuts over 10 years.

John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, said a spring survey found Tennesseans were broadly opposed to cuts.

"We ask about Tennesseans' willingness to support cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veterans, etc.," Geer outlined. "And the truth of the matter is that Tennesseans are opposed to cuts in any of these programs. And it doesn't matter your partisan stripe, whether you're a liberal Democrat or a conservative MAGA-ite, you don't want to see these programs cut."

More than 1.5 million Tennesseans depend on Medicare. Congressional action would be needed to avoid automatic cuts, likely requiring a 60-vote majority in the Senate.

While funding to research under the National Institutes of Health would not be subjected to automatic cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency has already fired 2,500 researchers at the NIH and canceled more than 800 research grants. Geer's polling found more than 70% of Tennesseans oppose cutting funding for basic research.

"We asked a battery of questions about cutting research at universities, at hospitals, for drug discovery, etc., and again, there's partisan differences," Geer reported. "The MAGA folks, so to speak, are happy to do the cutting but the rest of the state has concerns."

The poll found 73% of Tennesseans support research at teaching hospitals and 66% supported research at universities.


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