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Portland Water Bureau SERVUS Algorithm Reportedly Allocates Utility Bill Discount to High-Wealth Consumer

AI Incident Database · article · Oct 30, 2024 · UTC

The Portland Water Bureau's AI-driven pilot program for water bill discounts is reported to have randomly selected Tim Boyle, a wealthy high-water consumer, for a 40% discount intended for financially struggling customers. The program, developed by SERVUS, is meant to identify underserved individuals by using machine learning.

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recordType
incident-report
evidenceStatus
reported
region
Global

Reported occurrence date: 2024-10-14T00:00:00.000Z

Evidence & attribution

AI Incident Database, Responsible AI Collaborative; McGregor (2021), Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents. Incident-specific contributor credits are available at each citation link. Metadata adapted; article text excluded.

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

First collected: 2026-09-19T22:50:59.123Z. This is not the publication date.

Observed changes

AIIC observation times, not verified publisher revision times. Up to eight recent revisions.

2026-09-20T23:22:28.549Z

  • publishedAt: Not provided2024-10-30T00:00:00.000Z