The AI Impact: From County Efficiency to Global Transformation
Explore the practical applications of AI in Washoe County, Nevada, upcoming Apple products, and Ray Kurzweil's future predictions
It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so Good Government Files offers up its AI-focused edition of TL;dr. This month, we highlight practical and visionary uses of AI technology in government and consumer products. Washoe County, Nevada, uses a generative AI tool named Madison to streamline simple tasks, enhancing efficiency and customer service. Next, we explore why it’s wise to wait before purchasing new Apple products, as upcoming models will feature advanced AI capabilities requiring the latest hardware. Finally, futurist Ray Kurzweil offers a glimpse into AI’s transformative potential, predicting profound impacts on energy, manufacturing, and medicine that promise to revolutionize society.
Strap in, and let’s navigate our way through the latest in AI.
In this county, AI is its ‘institutional knowledge in a box’
Washoe County, Nevada, is using AI in practical, “boring” ways to improve customer service and efficiency, Route 50 reports. Its generative AI tool, Madison, helps draft staff reports by leveraging a closed dataset of county laws and documents. This approach not only saves time but also maintains high standards of governance and accuracy, positioning the county for future transformative AI projects. Here are the takeaways.
Practical AI Implementation: Washoe County uses AI to assist with drafting staff reports, saving time and allowing employees to focus on their primary tasks. As David Solaro, assistant county manager, explains, "Madison can help draft around 80% of a staff report in far less time than a county employee."
Maintaining Accuracy and Governance: Madison operates on a closed dataset to minimize errors and ensure accuracy in its outputs. “It is less likely to hallucinate and produce incorrect information about Washoe County,” Solaro says. “Madison also has citations for all its findings.”
Future Transformational Potential: By starting with low-risk, practical applications, Washoe County aims to build capacity for more innovative AI projects in the future. “This doesn’t feel very innovative, it feels super tactical,” says Erica Olsen from OnStrategy, which is helping the county leverage generative AI. “But maybe that’s also the brilliance of it because people aren’t very scared of it, like nothing’s going to break.”
If your leadership has been skittish about using AI, I highly recommend you forward this article to them.
Hold off on new iPhone due to AI
Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern, always a fun and helpful read, advises against purchasing an iPhone, Apple Watch, or certain AirPods this summer due to upcoming AI features and hardware updates. Apple’s new AI software, Apple Intelligence, necessitates better processors and more memory than what’s being released in most products being rolled out now.
AI-Driven Hardware Requirements: Apple’s new AI features, Apple Intelligence, will only be available on the latest hardware, such as the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 models, and M chip-equipped iPads and Macs. This means waiting for these new devices to fully benefit from the AI advancements.
Enhanced AI Capabilities: Apple Intelligence promises a range of new tools, including an emoji generator, smarter Siri, text summarization, and built-in ChatGPT support, enhancing the functionality and user experience of Apple’s latest devices.
Upcoming Product Releases: Significant updates to Apple Watches and AirPods are anticipated in the fall, suggesting that consumers should hold off on purchasing these products to take advantage of new features and potential price drops.
As someone in the market for a new iPhone, Joanna’s convinced to wait to make my upgrade.
Ray Kurzweil on how AI will transform the physical world
Futurist Ray Kurzweil’s June 17 article in The Economist discusses how AI will revolutionize the physical world, focusing on energy, manufacturing, and medicine. AI advancements promise profound changes, potentially leading to abundant solar energy, cheaper goods, and personalized medicine. Kurzweil knows whereof he speaks. He’s been involved in AI for the past 61 years, “longer than anyone else alive.”
AI in Energy: AI will revolutionize energy by optimizing solar energy production and battery storage. “Once vastly smarter AGI finds fully optimal materials, photovoltaic megaprojects will become viable, and solar energy can be so abundant as to be almost free.”
AI in Manufacturing: AI-driven robotics and materials science will drastically reduce the costs of goods production. “AI is making big strides in robotics that can greatly reduce labor costs, and AI is finding ways to replace expensive rare-earth elements with common ones like zirconium, silicon, and carbon-based graphene.”
AI in Medicine: AI will turn medicine into an exact science, tailoring treatments to individual patients. “Digital trials will let us tailor medicines to each individual patient. The potential is breathtaking: to cure not just diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, but the harmful effects of aging itself.”
If you’re not familiar with Kurzweil, do yourself a favor and watch the 2009 documentary Transcendent Man by renting or purchasing on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, and Vudu. You can also stream Transcendent Man for free on Hoopla (if you’ve got a library card. And shame on you if you don’t, GGF reader!).
In Other’s Words
Entrepreneur Phil Levin on the importance of neighborhoods:
You are going to spend 1000x more time in your surrounding five blocks than you will in any other neighborhood in your city. Thinking about all the things that New York City has—or the next city has—is a lot less important than thinking about the things within the five blocks where you live.
Most neighborhoods in your city you might never step foot in. They might as well be in the other side of the country. But the things in your immediate vicinity are the things that are going to dominate your life. So picking and influencing your neighborhood is really important ... the neighborhood determines quite a bit about our life and our happiness.
Source: The Importance of Picking Your Neighborhood (via bookbear express Substack)1
Author Cormac McCarthy on the benefits of bad luck:
You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.2
Soccer legend Pele on success:
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.
Onward and Upward.
H/T Author James Clear
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