Berrien County Commissioner Chokwe Pitchford’s time period serving on a National Affiliation of Counties committee on artificial intelligence has come to an finish now that the committee has completed assembly and launched its report.
Pitchford says he sat on the ethics subcommittee of the Artificial Intelligence Exploratory Committee over the previous yr, attending round eight conferences. The group sought to make suggestions to native and county governments on the right use of AI.
Pitchford tells us they wished to face the expertise head-on so counties may higher use it.
“This committee was fashioned when A.I. was beginning to rise and also you’re beginning to see Chat GPT and completely different integrations into cellphone corporations and answering machines,” Pitchford mentioned. “We knew that there was going to be an influence not solely on jobs however on simply the lifestyle for people.”
Pitchford says the committee recommends governments not draw back from AI as a result of it’s already getting used nearly in all places. Quite, he mentioned they need to higher perceive how AI may assist.
“That is a world dialog. A few of our adversaries as a rustic — China, Russia — they’re already beginning to interact with this expertise, they’re already beginning to spend money on it. We have now to do the identical factor right here in the US of America.”
Pitchford says governments may use AI to assist with issues like grant purposes, payroll, and submitting. Nevertheless, he says the report advises in opposition to relying on AI as a fast repair to issues with out addressing their root trigger. For instance, a faculty shouldn’t reply to overcrowded lessons by simply having college students work together with a chat bot as a substitute of a instructor.
The report has been printed and despatched to county governments throughout the nation. Regionally, Berrien County Administrator Brian Dissette has forwarded it to every township authorities within the space.