Artificial intelligence in government

Billboard of AI-generated presidential candidate Prabowo and running mate Gibran in Indonesia.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has a range of uses in government. It can be used to further public policy objectives (in areas such as emergency services, health and welfare), as well as assist the public to interact with the government (through the use of virtual assistants, for example). According to the Harvard Business Review, "Applications of artificial intelligence to the public sector are broad and growing, with early experiments taking place around the world."[1] Hila Mehr from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University notes that AI in government is not new, with postal services using machine methods in the late 1990s to recognise handwriting on envelopes to automatically route letters.[2] The use of AI in government comes with significant benefits, including efficiencies resulting in cost savings (for instance by reducing the number of front office staff), and reducing the opportunities for corruption.[3] However, it also carries risks (described below).

  1. ^ Martinho-Truswell, Emma (26 January 2018). "How AI Could Help the Public Sector". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  2. ^ Mehr, Hila (August 2017). "Artificial Intelligence for Citizen Services and Government" (PDF). ash.harvard.edu. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  3. ^ Zheng, Yongqing Yu, Han Cui, Lizhen Miao, Chunyan Leung, Cyril Yang, Qiang (2018). Smarths: An AI platform for improving government service provision. OCLC 1125199733.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)