After ChatGPT exploded In November last year, several government officials raced to ban its use. Italy ban chatbots. New York City, Unified Los Angeles, Seattle and Baltimore School Districts Access is prohibited or blocked to innovative AI tools, fearing that ChatGPT, Bard, and other content creation sites could lure students into cheating on assignments, causing widespread plagiarism and hindering critical thinking. This week, the US Congress listen to testimony from Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and AI researcher Gary Marcus as it considers whether and how to regulate the technology.
However, in a rapid change, some governments are now adopting a less fearless and more realistic approach to AI. New York City School Principal David Banks announced yesterday that NYC is reversing its ban because “fear and knee risks overlook the potential of generalized AI to assist students and teachers, as well as the fact that our students are engaged and will work in a world where a general understanding of AI is important. And yesterday, the City of Boston’s chief information officer, Santiago Garces, sent instruct to every city official encourage they started using generalized AI “to understand their potential.” The City has also authorized the use of the Google Bard as part of the City of Boston’s enterprise-wide use of Google Workspace for access by all public officials.
The “responsible testing method” adopted in Boston—the first of its kind in the United States—can, if used as a blueprint, revolutionize the public sector’s use of AI. across the country and make a big difference in how governments at all levels approach AI. By fostering greater exploration of how AI can be used to improve government effectiveness and efficiency, and by focusing on how to use AI to govern rather than just manage AI, the approach to Boston’s approach can help reduce alarm and focus attention on how to use AI for social good.
Outlining Boston’s Policy some situations in which public servants might want to use AI to improve the way they work, and even include specific instructions for effective quick writing.
The innovative AI, city officials were informed in an email sent from the CIO to all city officials on May 18, is a great way to start writing memos, correspondence and job descriptions, and can help ease the work of the overloaded public apparatus. officials.
These tools can also help civil servants “translate” government language and French into plain English, which can make important information about public services more accessible to citizens. The policy explains that civil servants can indicate a reading level or audience in the prompt, allowing the AI model to generate text tailored to elementary school students or a specific target audience.
AI can also help translate into other languages so that the city’s non-English speaking residents have equal and easier access to information about policies and services that affect them. .
City officials are also encouraged to use generalized AI to summarize long pieces of text or audio into brief summaries, which can make it easier for government officials to participate in meetings. chat with more residents.
