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- [00:01]
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- [00:33]
Stephen Overle
Hey, welcome back to Politico Tech. I'm your host, Stephen Overle, and on this show, I break down tech politics and policy with the people shaping our digital future. For as long as I've covered tech, I've heard about smart cities. This idea that government at the most local level would be increasingly digitized and automated, using people's data to make traffic less congested or trash pickup more efficient. The kind of stuff that isn't sexy, but that makes people's lives better. Now, to date, this idea of a great tech metropolis hasn't really come to fruition, at least not the bold visions that many technologists promised. But cities are still making a run for it, and increasingly, they're using artificial intelligence. James Anderson leads the Global government innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, and he's behind the organization's Citi Data alliance, which has helped 80 cities begin this AI transition. On the show today, James and I delve into what's working and where the challenges lie. Here's our conversation. James, welcome to Politico Tech.
- [01:57]
James Anderson
It is great to be with you today.
- [02:00]
Stephen Overle
So you've been in this sort of smart cities space for a long time, working on modernizing local government. What's the biggest change that you're seeing right now because of artificial intelligence?
- [02:11]
James Anderson
So necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. City halls are the least well resourced, most stretched level of government in existence. Most of the dollars that city halls have access to are tied to specific programs. And as you know, almost every major problem, whether it's the housing crisis, the migration crisis, the climate crisis, the gun crisis, rolls downhill onto the steps of city hall. And they have to respond whether they've got the funding for it or not. And so AI and better data and digitization, all of it, Right? All of these. I think mayors recognize a way to address the gap between the ambitions and expectations of local residents and the amount of resources that they're getting from state and higher levels of government. They've got to make one plus one equal more. I Think there's been a healthy degree of questioning and skepticism. As with any new technology, people are always. There's lots of questions. We always want to have safeguards. But I think they recognize that in this technology in particular, we can start to address some of the significant resource constraints that city halls operate under. And up the game. We pull mayors together all the time. And what they say over and over again is this is a moment in time where residents need to know that local government is delivering. People want to see results, they want to see the work, they want to understand what their local government is doing. So mayors feel that pressure in a very frontline kind of way. And I think they recognize that this is a, this could, you know, this isn't a miracle drug, but it can do a lot to help them really improve the way that services are being delivered.
- [04:10]
Stephen Overle
It's interesting you make that point. You know, we had the CEO of the company Box on the podcast recently and I asked him sort of how he views the AI powered government of the future. And he kind of distinguished between local government and federal government. And he really felt that local government was where AI will most directly touch people and sort of benefit, you know, their kind of day to day lives through city services and things like that. It sounds like that's how you see it too.
- [04:36]
James Anderson
I think local government is where AI hits the street and it's where we're going to show that AI can be human centered. It's where we're going to be able to show that this technology can create meaningful improvements in people's lives. I'll give you a great example. We're working with the city of Boston right now, which suffers from some of the highest levels of congestion of any US city. Some of the people that really suffer are school children who spend exorbitant amounts of time in traffic jams on school buses and their parents who have to get to work late because their school buses don't arrive on time. They're going to use AI to optimize school bus delivery to make sure that schools are fast tracked through the city, to help kids get their rears in classroom seats so they can learn and help parents get to school on time. And if AI can help us fix that mess, that's a huge win and a great example of how this will really touch down in people's lives in a way that matters.
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Stephen Overle
Are there other projects that come to mind that have been successful with AI and that you've seen deployed across different cities?
- [05:44]
James Anderson
I mean, there's a growing number of Those and, and more to come. You know, good AI, first and foremost is about good data. And one of the things that I think this is a real advantage local governments have. They've been getting their data houses in order for the past decade. And so there's decent data governance in more and more cities. There's better data quality in more and more cities. They're more aware of where data biases are and they're able therefore to make sure that bad data doesn't go into good AI to create bad outcomes. So that's number one. I think there's a deep awareness in city halls. Again, I don't think this is the case at other levels of government that you can't just put a crappy process online and say, voila, success. There's a real need to kick the tires of existing services, go out into the community and understand from that small business owner why the One Stop shop isn't working for her and build new programs and supports backwards from that. And so as we transition to digital and to AI, city halls have some muscle already in place to do that work and make sure that they're not putting a bad service online. Third, we're seeing great deployments. I was recently briefed on excellent work happening in Chattanooga where the mayor has created a digital and AI enabled sort of marketplace where people who need affordable housing are matched to opportunities. Some 3,000 people have already been served. The mayor also says that this is part of the reason he's experiencing great success on reducing the number of street homeless people experiencing street homelessness. More and more examples like that are coming into focus.
- [07:41]
Stephen Overle
Your point about sort of cities getting their data house in order was really interesting because one of the questions on my mind is what makes a city government ready to actually use AI in a meaningful way? Because the technology can exist and the technology can improve. That doesn't mean a government actually has what it needs to use it.
- [08:03]
James Anderson
I think this is a great question and the point that I would make here is that I think it takes sort of three key things to be effective with AI with digitization. The first is data. We already talked about that. Having your data house in order is number one. Number two, obviously you need some tech skills. That's not rocket science. But it's also not everywhere. We've been too quick to outsource those capabilities to private sector actors or to consultancies. And city halls do need to have some technology expertise in house so they can think smartly and understand the risks and negotiate contracts with a full awareness of the positive and negative externalities. I think the third piece is perhaps the one that gets the least attention, but I think is most important, it's leadership. This is change management. When you decide if you're the mayor of Boston to rewire the way your school buses work and enable them to move better, faster, quicker with AI, that changes the way that people do their jobs. It changes the role of people in the education department, in the transport department. It's a change management job. So, you know, I learned this from Mike Bloomberg in my time serving in his city Hall. You know, when he implemented 311 back in the day, that was still a, you know, a novel technology, right? That was a big change management gig. You know, he had to lead and talk about what it would mean to no longer have the blue pages and to put all of that online and make it all easy through one phone number that changed thousands of civil servants day jobs. That requires a significant amount of change management and leadership. And when you're, when you're looking at the power of AI and digitization, if you're not focused on the leadership culture, change management piece, you're going to have small deployments that are likely going to be pilots and are not going to achieve the impact at scale.
- [10:11]
Stephen Overle
Is change management kind of a euphemism for essentially holding people's hand, walking them through this? Especially with AI, this new technology that's disruptive, that people have some anxiety about replacing them? You know, I kind of, that's what I sort of hear when you're describing change management.
- [10:30]
James Anderson
That's a, that's a fair part of it. It's partly holding people's hands. It's also, I love what we're doing, what we're seeing in Boise. Boise, the innovation officer there has decided that, you know, a key part of optimum of, of uptaking AI in Boise Municipality is making sure that every department head and all of the program managers have a chance to learn about this technology themselves. I mean, that's just really important. You know, like how do we help civil servants become comfortable and knowledgeable about the technology so that they can begin to feel empowered by it and they can feel that this is a tool that can help me do my job better and achieve my mission. I came into public service for a reason. This tool can help me do that. So yes, it's about hand holding. Yes, it's about data fluency. It's about increasing the comfort of civil servants to use the technology that we hope can help them do their work better.
- [11:43]
Stephen Overle
Let me ask you about a couple potential obstacles I see, and I'm curious how you approach them because this idea of modernizing local government has been around a long time. It's gone through many different names, smart cities, for instance, and different kind of tech eras, if you will. One of the recurring problems, and you mentioned it earlier, is just resource constraints. Cities don't have a lot of money. And so even if Bloomberg philanthropy comes in at the front end and helps fund a transition and adoption of AI, how do cities sustain that and kind of overcome the resources crunch?
- [12:21]
James Anderson
Firstly, I think one of the things that we're not talking about here are big new outlays of cash on fancy data systems. I don't think the smart cities sort of idea of like buy a big sort of comprehensive computer and dashboard to solve all your problems is what anyone's talking about anymore. Those days are in the rearview mirror. I think what we're talking about now is how do we help local governments become digital organizations? How do we help these organizations uplift their analog practices into the digital moment? That's a lot about increasing the fluency of people in the workforce to use these tools to understand the role of data in their day to day work and to be a part of that change process. So I think we can get a huge amount done by focusing on the people who sit in those seats today and upskilling them and giving them some hand holding to begin using these tools and these practices in more digital and modern ways.
- [13:40]
Stephen Overle
Well, speaking of those people, tech talent is always a shortage pretty much everywhere, right? And certainly that's been the case at the city level. You know, I wonder if cities have the AI talent they need and can they compete for it with, you know, the federal government, you know, let alone private industry.
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James Anderson
It's a, it's a huge issue and it's definitely an issue that we focus on. There's, there's, number one, there's not. There's a growing number of on ramps into local government for technologists. Ten years ago there were very few. Today there are many more. The pay scales are not competitive with the private sector. That's a problem that we face across the entire sector. It's.
- [14:22]
Stephen Overle
Right.
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James Anderson
It's particularly acute in the technology shops, particularly if you're working in a municipality in Austin or San Jose and you know, everybody has the chance to work for a private sector company, you know, in the same town. Now I think the thing that we see about people who come into the public sector is they're not, you know, they want to get paid in a fair way. But they're not, they're not optimizing for profit. They're optimizing around mission. They want to be a part of improving their cities. And they recognize that public sector is not where you make the big bucks. But, but you can make a living wage, you can pay your bills and take care of your family, and you can be a part of improving your community. And that is attractive to people. And we see a lot of people coming in into local government from the private sector, particularly in the last couple of years, because they want to be a part of improving their community.
- [15:18]
Stephen Overle
Right now at the federal level, we're seeing a lot of federal agencies adopt AI. And you know, we, we had an episode recently talking about kind of these deals that the federal government is making with AI companies. And for those companies, you know, one of the incentives is getting in the door with, you know, the federal government and getting them, you know, hooked on their technology. And I guess one of the questions that I have is as cities adopt AI, do they in any way become beholden to some of these big tech companies, some of these big AI developers, and sort of rely on these companies for distributing what are ultimately like vital city services?
- [15:59]
James Anderson
I think that this is a really important issue. And I think if you look at the local government sector, there are significant expertise asymmetries between large technology companies and the people that exist in many city halls. One of the things that we have tried to do is to sort of get behind the backs of those technologists in these smaller markets and make sure that they are upskilled and have a better sense of more knowledge so that they can buy better partnerships, so they can protect the public interest and enter those partnerships in a more eye to eye, equal kind of way. So trying to reduce some of those asymmetries that I think historically have really created disadvantages for the public sector.
- [16:57]
Stephen Overle
Got it. So sort of try to try to put them on more equal footing, which, which is hard when you know, you're dealing with companies that are not only very wealthy but, but have a lot of tech know how and tech talent. That is, we were saying it's hard to come by at the city level.
- [17:11]
James Anderson
It's true. But it's also an exciting way that I think cities are sharing information in rapid fire about their experiences with different technology companies. And the chief data officer in one city is sharing their good experiences and their not so good experiences with the chief data officers on their platforms in their communities. And I think that that's a huge advantage the market is getting smarter about who's offering a good deal, who's a good partner. And I think that's again one of the advantages of cities that are in the business of sharing with one another.
- [17:47]
Stephen Overle
And so if you had to predict where all this is headed based on what you've seen in the past and these programs and projects that you all are involved in now, when someone says sort of where AI powered government is going to be in five years, what's your answer?
- [18:03]
James Anderson
I think city governments are going to show us the way forward. I think they have their data houses in order or they're getting there. They're using human centered design to create people centered policy. They're ahead of other levels of government. They have necessity based on lack of resources and an overwhelming amount of things to do. So there's motivation. I think the fact that cities are in the business of sharing with one another and those networks are lubricated and functioning effectively gives them a huge advantage to share information about what is working, what isn't, what companies are great partners who aren't. I think all of those things are going to help us at the local government level create those lighthouse examples of human centered AI deployment.
- [18:57]
Stephen Overle
Got it. Well, listen, James, I appreciate you being here on Politico Tech.
- [19:01]
James Anderson
Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
- [19:04]
Stephen Overle
That's all for this week's Politico Tech. If you like Politico Tech, be sure to subscribe and recommend the show to a friend or colleague. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Our producer is Nirmo Malaikal Pran Bandy made our theme music. I'm Stephen Overle. See you back here next week. Week. And Doug Limu and I always tell.
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James Anderson
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Stephen Overle
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James Anderson
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