AI and Government Workers: Use Cases in Public Administration

Report by Samantha Shorey: “Public administrators are the primary point of contact between constituents and the government, and their work is crucial to the day-to-day functioning of the state. AI technologies have been touted as a way to increase worker productivity and improve customer service in the public sector, particularly in the face of limited funding for state and local governments. However, previous deployments of automated tools and current AI use cases indicate the reality will be more complicated. This report scans the landscape of AI use in the public sector at the state and local level, evaluating its benefits and harms through the examples of chatbots and automated tools that transcribe audio, summarize policies, and determine eligibility for benefits. These examples reveal how AI can make the experience of work more stressful, devalue workers’ skills, increase individual responsibility, and decrease decision-making quality. Public sector jobs have been an important source of security for middle-class Americans, especially women of color and Indigenous women, for decades. Without an understanding of what is at stake for government workers, what they need to effectively accomplish their tasks, and how hard they already work to provide crucial citizen services, the deployment of AI technologies—sold as a solution in the public sector—will simply create new problems…(More)”.