Navigating the Cognitive Revolution: AI's Place in Our Jobs and Governance

Explore the transformative impact of AI on knowledge work and discover how government managers can responsibly harness this power for public good

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month, which means it’s time for Good Government Files’ regular TL;dr on Artificial Intelligence. First, we’ll have a look at the question all knowledge workers should be asking themselves: Will AI replace me? We’ll follow that with guidance for government managers on how to responsibly say “yes” to AI use.

Want To Know If AI Will Take Your Job? I Tried Using It To Replace Myself

In a March 22 column, Wall Street Journal tech writer Christopher Mims shares insights from integrating AI tools into every aspect of his work. “Here’s my verdict: The last time I had an experience this eye-opening and transformative was after I bought my first smartphone.” He’s convinced we are now entering a new kind of industrial revolution, which many have begun calling the “Cognitive Revolution.” Here are the top takeaways.

1. Personal Job Impacts: Mims used tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Nomi’s and Perplexity’s eponymous AIs and now relies on AI features within other programs, “such as meeting transcription and summarization in Otter.” The best tools, i.e. the paid versions, “are good advisers for tasks humans have done a million times before and written about ad nauseam on the internet.” He plans to continue using AI tools for research and in “thinking through” what he’s going to write.

2. Large Impacts for Small Business: Mims’ experience shows how the AI tools he used could have a large impact on small businesses. (For gov folks, replace the words “small businesses” with “small shops”.) An owner of a platform for learning how to use AI found the most popular courses include those small businesses can use to multiply the productivity of whoever oversees their marketing. “No one is expecting ad copy or Instagram posts to be works of art, and generating that kind of content, or even just rewriting or re-cutting existing content for different platforms, is a lot of work.” He adds that, “Small, resource-constrained companies and freelancers are precisely the folks who have been the earliest to embrace AI as a way to speed up basic knowledge work.”

3. AI as an Augmentation Tool: While AI tools may not replace entire jobs, they automate individual tasks, allowing humans to focus on higher-level thinking and creativity. This shift necessitates a new skill set, including “prompt engineering.” Learning to work with AI is crucial for future employment and efficiency. To that end, Mims created his own custom GPT, Tech Column Intern. “The first time I clicked on the button marked ‘Suggest a topic for this week’s column,’ the results it spat out were something I already had on my list of future pieces to research,” he writes. “Only it put a fresh twist on the topic, one that made it feel more urgent and exciting.”

How Should Government Guide the Use of Generative AI?

A March article for Government Technology shares how different agencies are answering that question. Their policies and guidelines aim to be “broad, easy to understand and relevant in the face of change.” Adam Stone writes, “Experts say there is an urgent need for government to establish guardrails, given the fast-growing availability of generative AI applications.” I agree, hence the following takeaways:

1. Principle-Based Guidelines: The City of Seattle has adopted principle-based guidelines for GenAI use, focusing on transparency, accountability, bias and fairness, privacy, and explainability. “We saw that with the growth of tools like ChatGPT, it was suddenly very, very likely that city employees were going to want to use this technology to conduct their day-to-day business,” Interim CTO Jim Loter said. “We wanted to open up a conversation about that.” The guidelines allow for flexibility and discretion among employees without having to anticipate every possible GenAI application or misuse.

2. A Bias Toward Action: The State of New Jersey created in 2023 an AI task force that issued its first policy announcement in November. It calls for transparency and encourages responsible experimentation. Per the policy: “We understand risks may not be fully apparent initially and commit to proactive risk assessment.” Writes Stone: “The point of all this is to get the ball rolling.” Says New Jersey Chief AI Strategist Beth Simone Noveck: “These are powerful new technologies that can really help us do our job better … to help people start to use these technologies to do things to benefit residents,” she said.

3. Human Oversight Is Central As Technology Evolves: Acknowledging the rapid development of AI technologies, these government IT leaders know policies will need to evolve in tandem with technological advancements. A team approach is critical. “We are going to create what’s called a community of practice for city employees who have an interest in AI technologies,” to help them implement the principles, Loter said. (This approach lines up with recommendations from Dr. Jacque Lambiase we shared in our first AI-related post in January.) Seattle’s policy will continue “to define high-level rules of engagement,” Stone writes. Says Loter: “As soon as you get down to the granular level and start to try to legislate particular products or versions of software, or even particular use cases, you start playing this giant whack-a-mole game with reality. We didn’t want to get into that.” God bless you, sir.

Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence

That’s not a headline but the title of a 34-page memorandum issued Thursday, March 28, by Shalanda Young, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Naturally, I used ChatGPT to read it for me and provide a summary. Quoth the bot: “The memo emphasizes the critical role of AI in enhancing federal government operations while underlining the importance of managing its associated risks, particularly those affecting public rights and safety.” Here is my human take on the three most salient aspects of the memo:

1. Innovation To Improve Service Delivery: Federal agencies are now required to develop enterprise strategies for responsible AI use to “improve service” to the public. This point can’t be emphasized enough. We should use these tools not because they’re cool and new, but because they can help us do a better job of serving the public.

2. Work In Teams and Share Use Cases: Within 60 days, agencies must convene “AI governance bodies” of relevant senior officials. See Takeaway 3 above. Just as important is the directive for agencies to “individually inventory each of its AI use cases at least annually, submit the inventory to OMB, and post a public version on the agency’s website.” This is critical to establishing and maintaining public trust and support of government’s use of these tools. Let folks know how you’re using them and how it’s going. The good news is that’s already happening.

3. Responsible and Open Use, Procurement: The memorandum promotes responsible AI adoption, focusing on talent development (love it!) and procurement practices that align with risk management guidelines. “Openness, sharing, and reuse of AI significantly enhance both innovation and transparency, and must also be done responsibly to avoid undermining the rights, safety, and security of the public. Agencies must share their AI code, models, and data, and do so in a manner that facilitates re-use and collaboration Government-wide and with the public.” I hope the reality matches the intent here. This is an area where I think local public servants can learn (and possibly steal code) from the federal government.

In Other’s Words

Staying on theme for the moment, here’s what Washington Post book critic Ron Charles wrote after testing ChatGPT’s knowledge of classic literature:

The fact that artificial intelligence mastered confidence before accuracy is the surest sign yet that it was designed by men.

Painter and visual artist Chuck Close on inspiration: 

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to do an awful lot of work. 

All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.

Source: Interview (March 2007) h/t James Clear

For all you baseball fans, now that the season has started, I give you the voice of Vin Scully, the GOAT of baseball broadcasters, reciting W.P. Kinsella’s words from “Field of Dreams.”

Onward and Upward.

P.S. As announced on March 15, a paywall kicks in this week. TL;dr remains free to all. The full Friday deep dives will require a paid subscription. And it’s not too late to take our reader survey!