Boston councilor asks for hearing on role of AI in city government - by reading speech written by AI

As she asked her colleagues yesterday to approve a hearing on the role of artificial intelligence in municipal government, Councilor Sharon Durkan (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway, Mission Hill) occasionally stumbled over her words.

She apologized, saying she hadn't actually written the remarks she was reading calling for a hearing - she'd asked an AI program to write them for her.

"Artificial intelligence is no longer some futuristic idea," her computer-driven statement began. "It's here shaping how we work, communicate and govern. From health care diagnostics to city planning, AI has the potential to make public services faster, smarter and more accessible. But like any powerful tool, AI has to be thought of thoughtfully."

Durkan said other cities have already begun to use AI for everything from improving traffic-light cycles and ambulance responses to monitoring Twitter for posts by sick people to stamp out food-borne disease outbreaks earlier. But she acknowledged that any AI discussions will have to also take into account privacy and racial bias - both Boston and San Francisco prohibit the police use of facial-recognition technology - and the fears that the city will just install banks of AI processors to eliminate workers.

"Not all AI is good, not all AI is helpful," she said, pointing in particular to "generative AI" of the sort where you ask questions to "a thing that's having a delusion," she said. "Generative AI is differant than all the other things we can unlock with [AI]: Traffic signals, public health."

At its best, AI is a tool to help people make better decisions - such as members of municipal unions, who she said need to be part of the discussion. And that discussion needs to be "making sure AI is just a tool and not a substitute for human judgment." She said she didn't just ask whatever AI tool she used - she didn't specify - to write her speech; She first had to organize possible topics for it to research and then review and refine what it spit out.

Durkan added that the city should also call on local experts for help - she said researchers at Northeastern and Boston University in particular have been at the forefront of looking at the ethical and privacy issues related to AI.

City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune assigned Durkan's hearing request to the council's committee on city services and information technology to schedule at least one hearing on the issue.

Watch Durkan make her hearing request: