San Jose hosts White House officials for AI forum

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- White House officials and cities around the country joined together for a virtual forum hosted by the city of San Jose.

"We're on the cutting edge of transforming government services to better serve everyone with the limited public dollars we have," said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

The city of San Jose hosted city, county and state governments from across the country.

Each were part of the Government AI Coalition.

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The goal is to promote responsible and purposeful AI in the public sector.

"We want to do it safely and responsibly, of course, but we have a lot to gain from leveraging AI, machine learning and other kinds of newer and emerging technologies to better serve our constituents," he said.

Two White House officials from the Office of Science and Technology Policy joined Wednesday's call.

Elaborating on how some agencies like the Social Security Administration are already using AI.

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"They're using AI to help speed up disability determinations. So they get a lot of applications for disability benefits and what they're doing is not making the determinations using AI, but instead using AI to surface potential relevant medical documents that can help them speed up processing for disability discrimination," said Olivia Zhu, senior police advisor for Artificial Intelligence.

Conversation over the use of AI in government isn't just centered around the federal level.

"President Biden and Vice President Harris had been clear from the start that we must manage AI's risks so that we can seize its benefits," said Denice Ross, Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, "And that's especially true in local government where AI can so directly impact the lives of citizens."

Together, the Gov AI coalition has developed a strategy to get more accountability from businesses selling AI to their agencies.

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Still, more has been called for by tech leaders from the federal government.

President Biden did sign an executive order last year that aimed to safeguard against threats posed by AI.

On Wednesday's call, White House officials said we could now see another new major development that could bring clarity in the use of AI.

"We are planning on imminently finally issuing that policy on the federal government use of AI," said Zhu, "So look out for that coming very soon, we're very excited about that."

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