Artificial Intelligence and City Government: "There is no going back."

"If you think AI is only about writing emails, memos, and school reports – you’ve missed the boat; that ship sailed two years ago."

Two weeks ago, I attended the Public Sector Executive Summit: “AI and The Future City” hosted on the campus of Harvard University in the Maxwell Dworkin Building – a laboratory built by Bill Gates and Steven Ballmer, the creators of Microsoft.

Our summit leader, David Graham, is a former local government executive, the former Co-Chair of Civic Innovation Programs, and a Global Civic Innovation Fellow at Harvard.

The summit was attended primarily by city managers from across the nation. It was designed as a forum for open and candid engagement, to test ideas with peers, and to learn from experts at Harvard and MIT. In short, it provided a space to explore both the vast possibilities of artificial intelligence in municipal government and the potential dangers it poses.

If you think AI is only about writing emails, memos, and school reports – you’ve missed the boat; that ship sailed two years ago. My fellow city managers saw demonstrations including a podcast summary of the three-day conference that was created in just four minutes. One trainer used his AI-generated avatar to present on his behalf because he needed to care for his ailing father and couldn’t attend in person. A hip-hop song was written, with music, summarizing the three days of training – it took about four minutes to create. While those examples were entertaining, city managers also discussed future uses of AI such as handling open records requests, drafting city council meeting summaries, and someday even preparing the city’s annual budget. And that is just the beginning.

While some of my colleagues have reservations and concerns about AI (as do I), one presenter explained, “there is no going back.” She further compared it to a municipality, years ago, deciding not to implement the use of cell phones in government business. She ended by saying that AI is far bigger than cell phones.

Some cities have already established Chief AI Officers – separate from their Chief I.T. Officers. (Louisville recently created a similar position.) Smaller communities will simply have to start learning everything they can about this dynamic, ever-changing field, which evolves from month to month. The City of Hopkinsville already uses AI to score city streets. I have asked the city’s communications director to establish an informal group across departments to research and evaluate artificial intelligence programs – considering both benefits and possible risks – and to draft a policy for the use of generative AI.

The speaker was right: there is no going back. Artificial Intelligence, for good or ill, is here to stay. While no government can fully get ahead of it, the City of Hopkinsville will not be left behind.

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