Artificial Intelligence: Generating Questions for Municipal Governments BEN BROWN Communications and Multimedia Strategist or decades upon decades, humans have studied, romanticized, and maybe even hovered over the panic button when it comes to the concept of artificial intelligence, or AI, as a nebulous but certainly possible piece of our future. A best-case scenario, perhaps: AI helps us with our lives through organizing and applying knowledge, identifying informative patterns, automating tasks and maybe even inventing new technologies to benefit us further. A worstcase scenario, perhaps: AI backfires on us and drives mankind into a dystopia where tech fraudsters run wild before “conscious” computers seized all control, kind of like the Terminator movies or a Harlan Ellison story. If we’re just talking possibilities, either scenario could be. What’s important for government officials and private sector leaders at various levels right now is learning how relevant this technology has become and what its capabilities are, because they’ve begun to bloom. That’s specifically true with “generative AI” programs, like ChatGPT, Midjourney and other search engines that can take user prompts and generate entirely new content—text narratives, images, videos, court filings, scientific analyses, all kinds of things—all on their own. This exists today, and it seems to be advancing by the moment. “What’s new about generative AI, and that’s really what’s been exploding in the past couple of years … is that this is a really different form of artificial intelligence,” said Kristi Nickodem, an AI expert and distinguished professor with the UNC School of Government, while presenting on the subject to a conference of municipal attorneys recently. Generative AI has been popular with some attorneys lately because it has helped with tasks including case research or the wording of sentences in filings. According to Nickodem, the technology itself has already passed the bar exam and scored highly or perfectly on several common standardized tests that humans take. “It’s not just trained to perform a discreet task,” Nickodem continued of generative AI. “It’s trained on massive volumes of data—whether that data is written, text or images—and then trained to replicate or reproduce patterns in that data in a way that resembles human creative content. Sometimes that content is going to be text, sometimes it will be images, sometimes it will be video. But what’s new here is it’s generating brand new content.” For anyone needing an intro, we can turn directly to this technology, like with the aforementioned ChatGPT generative-AI search engine, to which Southern City recently posed the question: What are the pros and cons of using AI in municipal government? Here’s what ChatGPT came back with: PROS • Efficiency: AI can streamline processes and automate tasks, leading to increased efficiency in local government operations. • Cost savings: By reducing the need for manual labor, AI can lead to cost savings for the government. • Improved decision-making: AI can analyze data and provide insights that can help government officials make better decisions. • Enhanced citizen services: AI can be used to improve citizen services by providing quick and accurate responses to inquiries and requests. • Increased transparency: AI can help governments make datadriven decisions and increase transparency in decision-making processes. CONS • Job displacement: The implementation of AI in local government may lead to job loss for some workers who perform tasks that can be automated. • Privacy concerns: AI systems may collect and analyze large amounts of data, raising concerns about privacy and data security. • Bias and discrimination: AI algorithms can inherit biases present in the data they are trained on, leading to discriminatory outcomes. • Lack of accountability: AI systems may lack transparency in their decision-making processes, making it difficult to hold them accountable for errors or biases. • Resistance to change: Some employees and citizens may be resistant to the adoption of AI in local government, leading to challenges in implementation. F SOUTHERN CITY Quarter 2 2024 40
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