People don’t necessarily think of governments as being quick to adopt emerging technologies. In many cases, government entities lag compared to others, and they only want to deploy newer technologies after studying substantial amounts of proof that finally convince them to do it.
Some people may be surprised, then, that governments are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) faster than certain other technologies. Here are five examples of the results.
1. Reducing Instances of Tax Evasion
In the U.S. alone, statistics say that one out of every six tax dollars owed to the federal government goes unpaid. Tax evasion can be deliberate, such as when a person knowingly misreports tax details so that they owe less. However, it can also occur unintentionally, like when a tax filer makes an honest mistake that affects their tax obligations.
AI can assist in several ways when applied to tax evasion reductions. For example, it could look through past tax returns a person filed and compare them with the most recent documents. AI does well at spotting outlying trends, and it could find them concerning an individual or a group of tax filers. It could also identify characteristics of people most likely to commit tax evasion.
Government officials in India, France, Denmark and Norway are among the nations that have either successfully implemented AI to fight tax evasion or plan to do so soon. This application doesn’t replace human auditors, but it helps them find things they might otherwise miss.
2. Giving the U.S. Military New Ideas
Several branches associated with the U.S. military showed interest in seeing what AI can do. In 2018, the entities hosted a gathering of companies that arrived to show off the capabilities of their AI products. Some of the military’s needs aren’t much different from what other sectors might require. For example, one of its interests relates to AI that pulls text from a static or moving image.
The military also wants more specific AI applications, such as using the technology to recognize threats to the defense forces or analyze drone footage for signs of enemies or other risks. It’s too early to say how the military might use AI, but the fact that it’s open to the idea is promising in itself.
3. Eliminating Some Manual Aspects of Contract Negotiation and Administration
Arrangements with contractors help government agencies get things done. For example, if the AI solutions mentioned in the previous section attracted enough interest, a government contract would stipulate how and when a specified party would provide its technology.
The processes related to contracts are historically inefficient, mainly because the parties involved have to abide by specific rules. There are also tons of acronyms associated with government contracting that all the relevant parties must understand.
However, AI could cut down on the manual work carried out for contract negotiation and administration. For example, government parties could utilize AI to shorten, or at least predict, the time needed to get a contract signed. A tool could look at the metrics associated with similar deals and use analytics to determine the approximate time frames.
Deloitte recently surveyed public sector early adopters of AI. Quality control and predictive analytics and were two high-ranking uses cited by respondents, mentioned by 47% and 35% of participants, respectively. Both of those uses apply to government contracting, and they could help streamline the overall processes.
4. Catching People Using Their Phones While Driving
An issue that law enforcement officials often struggle with is that it’s difficult to catch people doing unlawful things that may only happen in a short timeframe, such as using their phones while driving. Government officials in New South Wales, Australia hope to change that. They rolled out a new program in December 2019 that applies AI to camera footage to look for mobile phone use.
Officials installed cameras on fixed points and the top of trailers. AI flags the images that seem to show people using their phones, but humans check for false positives. People reprimanded during the first three months of the initiative will merely receive warnings. After that, however, the fines could total several hundred dollars, plus generate demerit points depending on the circumstances.
5. Screening for Children Who May Be in Harmful Situations
In the United Kingdom, some local and regional government authorities tap into databases ” such as those storing information from the National Health Service ” to assist social workers. The goal is to rely on AI to find risk factors that may impact the well-being of minors. More specifically, the hope is that such a system would uncover things social workers may not know.
For example, an AI-based system could dig through data and find that a child missed an abnormal amount of school over the last few months. Or, if a family gets housing support from the government and also engages with social workers, an AI tool might reveal that the household got behind on its rent.
People have split opinions about this use of AI. Some agree it could keep children out of harm’s way by helping social workers connect the dots. It’s possible, though, that AI approaches to this one could cause social workers to draw unfair conclusions or decide that specific issues are problematic when they don’t actually affect a particular young person’s well-being.
Promising Solutions
These five applications show that AI is making waves in governments. People can expect more of the same for the foreseeable future.
