Google, NLC issue AI guide for city leaders

• The National League of Cities and Google announced on Wednesday a report on how local governments can leverage artificial intelligence-driven technologies — and mitigate the risks they present.
• AI offers cities the opportunity to become more efficient, sustainable and livable, NLC CEO and Executive Director Clarence Anthony said in a foreword to the report. He pointed to applications such as optimizing traffic flow, reducing energy consumption and streamlining administrative tasks.
• However, not all cities are using or even have access to AI, which could turn “the digital divide that has plagued many cities into an ‘AI divide,’” Karan Bhatia, vice president and global head of government affairs and public policy at Google, said in a statement.

Dive Insight:

While the concept of AI has existed for decades, it burst into the public discourse in 2022 and 2023 with the release of generative AI applications that allowed people around the world to engage more directly with the technology for the first time, the NLC and Google report says.

Generative AI, which can create new content like text and images based on patterns learned from existing data, is just one of numerous categories of AI. Other types of AI relevant to local government are predictive AI, which makes predictions about future events or trends, and perceptive AI, which interprets and understands sensory inputs.

Each of these types of AI brings distinct promise and pitfalls, says the report, which was spearheaded by the NLC’s AI Advisory Committee.

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