Supt. Carvalho moves ahead with troubled AI effort despite collapse of tech contractor

Los Angeles Unified Supt. One parent said he found personal information about his daughter online and questioned the district’s management of private data — although the district denies any connection between leaked data and the AI project or Boston-based AllHere, the company that designed the chatbot. Carvalho has touted the chatbot, named “Ed,” as able to answer school-related questions from faculty, parents and students by drawing from all district databases — meaning that the automated platform is collecting, processing and sending out enormous amounts of data from the nation’s second-largest school system. District officials said Ed was rolled out initially this spring to the district’s 100 most “fragile” schools — an attempt to provide the new benefit where it most was needed to help with academics, attendance and mental health issues. In a general response the district told Regen: “We are working to determine what information was involved in this incident and if we determine that it involved anyone’s personal information, we will provide notifications to those individuals in accordance with applicable law.” In a statement, district officials said they have cooperated with investigators and follow the highest standards for data protection.