Anything is Opossumble!

If you’re confused by the picture accompanying this blog, then you probably didn’t attend our annual PMX conference in Williamsburg last month. If you had, you would know that two of the main topics of discussion were A.I. (of course) and… opossums. I won’t try to explain all of that in the space of this blog, but I thought I would combine the two to get the pretty adorable picture you see here. 

Let’s talk a little bit about A.I. first. As you all know, and we definitely heard at PMX, A.I. is everywhere in the property management field. Many attendees described using A.I. to draft tenant emails, track tenant conversations, and navigate difficult conversations. One interesting way some members are using A.I. is to create an internal database of information. For example, some PMs will upload copies of their company policies, forms, and applicable law into an A.I. engine. Then, if a question comes in, the PM can run that question through the A.I. chatbot and get an answer based on all of the data that they have input. I should be very clear that this is not a substitute for legal advice (not trying to write myself out of a job), and you should always confirm everything that you get from A.I. to ensure that it isn’t providing you with crazy answers, or “hallucinating” to use the technical term.

In addition, you should always be aware of what your A.I. service of choice is doing with the information that you upload. For some, the files and information that you provide is only kept “in house” so to speak, and is not used to train the system or provide answers or information to users outside of your organization. However, some others will take whatever info you put in and use that for the benefit of anyone who uses that service. Making sure you know the difference is especially critical when you upload things that are potentially sensitive, like tenant information or company policies.

So, let’s say that you have confirmed that your A.I. engine is going to keep your uploads private. If you ask it a question such as, “can a tenant have an opossum as an emotional support animal,” it will (hopefully) provide you with an answer similar to this. Yes, neither state or federal fair housing law restrict ESAs by species, so an opossum would be allowed. However, you should look at the specific zoning laws of a locality to determine if that animal is allowed in that property. If not, you should enter into an interactive process to determine if some other animal would satisfy the tenant’s need without violating zoning.

To learn more about A.I., wildlife, and any number of other topics related to property management, we hope you’ll join us next year as PMX heads back to Harrisonburg, VA. Keep an eye on your email next summer for sign-up information. And, as always, if you have any legal questions, please contact us on the Legal Hotline.

The post Anything is Opossumble! appeared first on Virginia REALTORS®.