The National Association of Counties (NACo) has released a report to help local governments integrate artificial intelligence (AI) safely and effectively. The report, created by NACo’s AI Exploratory Committee, highlights both the risks and opportunities associated with AI. The committee was formed in May to examine emerging policies, practices, and potential applications and consequences of AI.
The report offers practical recommendations for county governments, who have a vested interest in shaping and overseeing the development and implementation of AI. The toolkit includes insights from a survey of county officials and staff, revealing widespread use of GenAI tools like ChatGPT. It outlines the benefits of GenAI, such as increased productivity and cost savings, while addressing challenges like governance, security, and staff training.
NACo plans to hold quarterly virtual meetings to gather feedback and update the toolkit as needed. NACo’s report identifies opportunities for counties, such as enhancing social services, improving public safety and security, personalizing service delivery, creating tailored local solutions, and utilizing forecasting. The AI County Compass includes actionable steps for local governments, such as developing policies and providing educational resources for staff.
While NACo’s report aims to provide local governments with tailored recommendations for implementing and managing GenAI, cybersecurity is another crucial domain where AI has a substantial influence. At the upcoming MACo Summer Conference session, an expert panel will share strategies to implement AI-driven cybersecurity challenges and solutions while avoiding potential pitfalls. The MACo Summer Conference, “Turning the Tide,” is scheduled for August 14-17, 2024, at the Roland Powell Convention Center in Ocean City, Maryland.
To learn more and read NACo’s full report, visit the NACo website. Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), particularly through the use of large language models (LLMs), has the capacity to revolutionize the public sector. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like text, enabling them to answer questions, create content, and provide insights.
For public sector leaders, GenAI serves as a powerful tool to enhance decision-making, automate routine tasks, and engage with constituents more effectively. These tools can streamline complex tasks and free up valuable resources. Despite the promise of GenAI, its implementation is not without challenges.
The primary concerns revolve around data security, privacy, and the integrity of the models themselves. Risks include sensitive information disclosure, prompt manipulation, and training data poisoning.
Ai guidelines for local governments
The advent of GenAI also brings a proliferation of social engineering threats. As GenAI technologies become more sophisticated, they provide powerful tools for creating highly convincing and manipulative content. This capability lowers the barrier for malicious actors to conduct social engineering attacks.
To empower the workforce and harness the benefits of GenAI while mitigating risks, government agencies should consider education and training programs to develop systematic programs to educate the workforce on the nuances and risks of GenAI technology. Known as “the crossroads of the nation” for its proximity to some of the country’s busiest transportation routes, Wentzville, Missouri, is also pioneering the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the citizen experience. Wentzville, a town of about 47,000, is using generative AI (genAI) tools to streamline communications with its citizens, putting it in a distinguished group of municipalities actively leveraging AI.
AI offers cities a powerful new set of tools to achieve a long-term goal: enriching the citizen experience. According to studies, citizens are nine times more likely to trust a government agency when satisfied with the service they receive. The challenge lies in identifying use cases that deliver value without exposing the agency or its constituents to undue risk.
Based on experience supporting public agencies on their AI journeys, here are five compelling government use cases for the technology today:
1. Creating a 360-Degree Profile of Citizens: Agencies can better understand individual citizens’ preferences and needs by creating a single, unified identity view. 2.
Predicting Citizen Needs: With a complete view of its citizens, agencies can offer highly personalized service recommendations generated by AI models. 3. Simplifying and Automating Services: A mobile-enabled, genAI-supported digital platform can dramatically simplify interactions with agencies.
4. Handling Mass Requests During Crises: AI-driven platforms can rapidly classify and process large volumes of documents, significantly saving manual work hours during crises. 5.
Improving the Citizen Experience: AI can conduct sentiment analysis of opinion data from surveys and social media to help agencies take action to improve citizen experiences. However, AI deployment depends on solid preparation, including adherence to cybersecurity standards, using high-quality data, and piloting AI in targeted use cases before broader application. Implementing clear AI ethics and governance policies and providing employee training are also essential.
