Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Leveraging AI to Transform Government

“AI has the potential to help address many of our country’s pervasive problems and advance our safety, health and well-being,” said The Future Has Begun, a report on the impact of AI on government by the Partnership for Public Service and the IBM Center for the Business of Government.  “That promise has great potential to transform government.”

 “The most challenging problems AI may help us solve - from fighting terrorists to serving vulnerable populations - will involve government.  More immediately, though not less consequentially, AI will change the way public servants do their jobs.  Because of the impact AI could have on how governments ensure our safety and further our well-being, government leaders are likely to play a significant role in dictating future directions for AI.”

To illustrate how government is using AI, the report is focused on four concrete use cases being pursued by different agencies.  In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 people from 10 organizations, including the various government agencies involved, as well as their collaborators in non profits and universities.  Let me briefly summarize each of these four case studies.

The MIT Work of the Future Report

“The world now stands on the cusp of a technological revolution in artificial intelligence and robotics that may prove as transformative for economic growth and human potential as were electrification, mass production, and electronic telecommunications in their eras,” said the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future in its recently released interim report.  The final report will be issued after conducting additional research over the next year.

The Task Force was convened in the spring of 2018 by MIT President Rafael Reif to address what may well be the most critical question of the digital economy: as emerging technologies raise aggregate economic output and the wealth of nations, will they also enable people to attain higher living standards, better working conditions, greater economic security, and improved health and longevity?

The report’s overriding conclusion is that the likelihood that AI and automation will wipe out major workforce sectors in the near future is exaggerated.  However, we’ve already seen important reasons for concern, especially the rising polarization of employment and wage distribution over the past few decades, which has disproportionately benefited high-skilled professionals while reducing opportunities for mid- and low-skilled workers.

“[A] critical challenge is not necessarily a lack of jobs, but the low quality of many jobs and the resulting lack of viable careers for many people, particularly workers without college degrees.  With this in mind, the work of the future can be shaped beneficially by new policies, renewed support for labor, and reformed institutions, not just new technologies. Broadly, the task force concludes, capitalism in the U.S. must address the interests of workers as well as shareholders.”

The Blockchain Value Framework

In July, 2019, the World Economic Forum and Accenture released Building Value with Blockchain Technology, a white paper aimed at helping organizations evaluate blockchain’s benefits and build an effective business case.  The white paper is based on a global survey of 550 individuals across 13 industries, including automotive, banking, and retail; interviews with CEOs and public sector leaders; and a detailed analysis of 79 blockchain projects.

Survey participants were asked for the top reasons that led their organizations to invest in blockchain solutions.  Across all industries, the top three priorities were “full traceability of information on the blockchain”; “ability to ensure data has not been tampered with”; and “increased security”.  “New business products or services” ranked last among the options for investing in blockchain, suggesting that at this early stage, improving existing products and services is a higher priority than considering new business opportunities.

As is often the case, fear that the train is leaving the station is another powerful motivator for investing in a new, fast growing technology.  Worldwide spending on blockchains solutions is expected to reach almost $3 billion in 2019 and close to $12.5 billion in 2022.  51% of survey respondents mentioned “missing out on developing new products/services” as their top concern if they don’t invest in blockchain in the near future; 23% mentioned “missing out on efficiency gains”; and 15% were concerned with “missing out on cost savings.”

How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources

“We have finally learned how to tread more lightly on our planet.  It’s about time,” writes Andrew McAfee in the Introduction to his new book, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources - and What Happens Next.   McAfee is Co-Director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy and a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, as well as a prolific writer of books and articles.

“For just about all of human history our prosperity has been tightly coupled to our ability to take resources from the earth,” he adds.  “So as we became more numerous and prosperous, we inevitably took more: more minerals, more fossil fuels, more land for crops, more trees, more water, and so on.  But not anymore.  In recent years we’ve seen a different pattern emerge: the pattern of more from less.”

What led to the emergence of a more-from-less pattern?  The book provides a provocative answer to this question.  The most important forces responsible for the change are technological progress and capitalism.