AI in Government Services: Use Cases & Predictions

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t just a new-age technology reserved for deep fakes and social media games. It’s a powerful avenue of technology that can be a beneficial tool for professional services. From big-scale commerce and agriculture projects to identifying traffic patterns in certain regions, AI can be leveraged to help the public. The government uses artificial intelligence in many ways to pull data, improve systems and better serve constituents.

What Are Some Examples of Government Agencies Using AI?

To increase workplace efficiency, various departments in the federal government are using AI’s powerful technologies to protect and empower citizens while ensuring their right to privacy. Most government organizations will probably embrace some form of AI in the future, even if it starts with smaller developments like chatbot answering services before moving onto large-scale projects. There are already AI use cases in government, some of which are outlined below.

Law Enforcement and Homeland Security

The US’s defense, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have already adopted large-scale AI to streamline processes. Homeland security uses AI algorithms and graph analysis to safeguard against major cyber attacks. AI is also used at border control to prevent drug trafficking by intelligence agencies, while law enforcement uses it to detect traffic incidences.

Education

The US Education Department has set out to improve the life of financial aid students by providing a chatbot to answer questions and assist with any language barriers. Students can get the answers they need in their mother tongue via a virtual assistant called Aiden.

Department of Commerce

Having adopted a variety of uses for AI in commerce, this department has fully integrated the many uses of artificial intelligence. For starters, there is a platform that match-makes business-to-business connections for better trade relations. There is also a chatbot to assist with FAQs. More advanced technologies include the use of AI for acoustic detection of marine life in protected areas to monitor climate change.

Department of Labor

The Department of Labor uses AI across a broad spectrum of categories, from documents to language and processing. AI is used for cloud-based language translation, translating audio files into text, processing of documents, analysis and recording of calls and extraction of data from complex forms into systems.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The environmental agency uses a variety of well-researched intelligence projects to determine environmental hazards and risks to health. One such tool is a model that can predict pathways of exposure from roughly 1,880 pesticide chemicals and then categorize the data.
The Department of Science, Veteran Affairs and National Transportation Safety Board are further examples of departments in the public service industry and government that have implemented AI with great success.

How Is Artificial Intelligence Used in Government Services?

Government services harness the power of AI to gather data in unique ways that identify patterns and loopholes that cannot be determined manually. AI is also admin-efficient, freeing up time for experts to focus on bigger issues.
The military, for example, has designed semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles to detect weapons and suspicious activity. These vehicles include land, water and air-based vessels. Drones are also used for intelligence, striking targets and even anti-poaching.
Other ways artificial intelligence is used is for government organizations to flag fraud, automate payments, prioritize health care cases and determine visa and immigration status of individuals. AI is mainly used for automating processes, responding to queries and determining suspicious patterns of activities across various sectors.
For administration purposes in government, AI can deliver recommendations to the end user and improve customer engagement. Some public and private sector medical industries use AI for imaging and clinical information.

What Are Some Obstacles of Implementing AI Functions in Government Services?

AI can improve a lot within government services, but it’s not without its glitches. Below are a few of the more common obstacles encountered when using AI.

• Privacy: Drones can be invasive, and although there are regulations in place about where they can fly, it can create a feeling of being stripped of privacy.
• Profiling and stereotyping: When applying for a mortgage, there is an automated algorithm based on biometrics, which may not be accurate. There are anomalies in every automated pattern.
• Discrimination: In the criminal justice system, facial recognition tools can be discriminatory toward minorities and consistently return false positives.
• Lack of regulations: Because AI is a new development that’s constantly progressing, there are no concrete regulations in place yet to safeguard every aspect of AI. There still needs to be a human aspect to oversee things to ensure transparency.
• Data: Unless there’s a thorough risk analysis is done, there could be a breach of data.

What Is the Benefit of AI in Government?

AI can keep society safe and streamline emergency processes. Bots can be used for customer service, drones to detect crime, machine learning for financial and debt analysis, and patterns to determine energy outputs and maximize efficiency.

While there might be potential risks, if monitored properly and rolled out slowly, it can be hugely beneficial. AI is useful in this fast-paced society, so it’s important to implement and assess risks.

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