Local governments everywhere are racing to deploy AI in hope of improving services, communicating better and saving money. At ICF, we have seen the AI projects of Intelligent Communities grow more impressive every year. But there’s an untold story.  As a recent article put it, “an AI arms race has begun between the state and citizens, and it is not clear that the state will win.”

In the UK, local councils are responding to public frustration by developing tools that speed up housing approvals. But they are also being overwhelmed by AI-generated objections to proposed housing developments. For the low-low price of £45, the Objector AI platform will scan planning documents, draw up legal grounds for opposition and even write a speech to be read aloud at a public meeting.

In the Netherlands, one municipality saw objections to property-tax valuations jump by 400% after a commercial AI platform made it simple to launch appeals against them. In the ultimate irony, Americans are using AI to read thousands of pages of zoning laws, track electrical grid and noise regulations and draft swift objections to permit reviews – all in an effort to keep AI data centers from being built in their towns.

Unintended Consequences

It’s one more unintended consequence of AI, and municipal leaders need to get on top of it fast. They need to work with their people and institutions to decide how best to maintain the public’s right to influence government decisions without granting those with a gripe the power to stop government from doing anything at all.

For me, there’s also reason to worry about the alluring temptations AI dangles before us. You were born with receptors in your brain that eagerly attach to drugs, from alcohol to fentanyl, which gives them their addictive power. Somewhere in all of us there are similar receptors – for immediate gratification, for “my way or the highway,” for lies that make us feel good. Those receptors are the commercial AI’s prime target and they’re getting awfully good at hitting it.

It is said that most of the governing people experience takes place in their hometowns.  So, maybe the place called home is the right place to begin taming the unintended consequences of this amazing technological innovation.

Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash