Opportunities and Risks of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector

In a report to the Administrative Conference of the United States that I co-authored with administrative law scholars, we showed how early AI innovation in nearly half of the largest 142 federal agencies can transform the administration of government benefits like veteran disability compensation, improve monitoring of public health risks and adverse drug effects, and help protect workers, consumer. [...] The resulting “micro-specialization” increased the speed and accuracy of adjudicators in the pilot.4 SSA’s early investments culminated in an AI tool that allows judges to check draft decisions for some 30 errors.5 Such innovations can expedite and improve agency decision-making to better serve American citizens and some have called the official who pioneered these early investments the “Steve Job. [...] The most recent AI Index report by Stanford HAI highlights that 65% of AI PhDs land in industry, 28% in academia, and less than 2% in government.14 Or, in the words of one entrepreneur: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.”15 Strengthening the pipeline of technical talent into the public sector is paramount. [...] As the National Security Commission on AI noted, it’s not just compensation: “It is the perception, and too often the reality, that it is difficult for digital talent in government to perform meaningful work.”16 I’ve seen firsthand how the government is failing to recruit and retain technical experts. [...] 5 high-quality administrative data and computing resources to level the playing field between industry, academia, and government.20 AI requires high-fidelity data and many of the negative impacts of AI we’ve observed stem from training large models on anything on the web, including unverified and harmful information.