K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
While public agencies continue to deploy chatbots and other artificial intelligence tools, confusion about the technology abounds, according to new survey findings from Gartner, and the pandemic has provided little fuel for its growth. The research agency found that 36 percent of survey respondents plan to increase AI and machine learning (ML) investments this year. Even so, proponents of AI and ML have significant work to do, said Dean Lacheca, Gartner’s public-sector research director, in an email interview with Government Technology.
“What was striking is the fact that leveraging of AI within government had not really advanced during the period of the pandemic. It hasn’t really slowed but it has not accelerated either, especially if we exclude chatbots from consideration,” he said. “There is still a lot of talking about the impact it will have and some experimenting and some great point solutions, but adoption is still not widespread. The research points to the use of ML ramping up in the coming couple of years.” That’s not all that faces backers of the technology. Gartner found that while 53 percent of government workers who have used AI tools say the tech “provides insights to do their job better,” only 34 percent of workers unfamiliar with AI said the same.
“I think there is still more work to be done to demystify the technology. There remains a lot of misunderstanding and generalization of the technology,” said Lacheca.
TECH CONFUSION
Part of the problem stems from a lack of specificity, he said. “The more that government technology leaders start to identify specific and narrow use cases and then link them with the specific, readily adoptable technologies like ML, computer vision and natural language processing, rather than the generic AI terminology, the more likely the government leadership will be to understand the potential of the technology,” Lacheca said. The Gartner findings stem in part from a global survey that attracted 166 responses from all levels of government, with 27 percent coming from state and provincial governments, and another 27 percent from local governments, as well as some respondents from counties. The findings also come from a separate Gartner survey of 258 government employees working for public agencies around the world.
Continue reading: https://www.governing.com/next/what-obstacles-does-government-ai-still-have-to-overcome
“What was striking is the fact that leveraging of AI within government had not really advanced during the period of the pandemic. It hasn’t really slowed but it has not accelerated either, especially if we exclude chatbots from consideration,” he said. “There is still a lot of talking about the impact it will have and some experimenting and some great point solutions, but adoption is still not widespread. The research points to the use of ML ramping up in the coming couple of years.” That’s not all that faces backers of the technology. Gartner found that while 53 percent of government workers who have used AI tools say the tech “provides insights to do their job better,” only 34 percent of workers unfamiliar with AI said the same.
“I think there is still more work to be done to demystify the technology. There remains a lot of misunderstanding and generalization of the technology,” said Lacheca.
TECH CONFUSION
Part of the problem stems from a lack of specificity, he said. “The more that government technology leaders start to identify specific and narrow use cases and then link them with the specific, readily adoptable technologies like ML, computer vision and natural language processing, rather than the generic AI terminology, the more likely the government leadership will be to understand the potential of the technology,” Lacheca said. The Gartner findings stem in part from a global survey that attracted 166 responses from all levels of government, with 27 percent coming from state and provincial governments, and another 27 percent from local governments, as well as some respondents from counties. The findings also come from a separate Gartner survey of 258 government employees working for public agencies around the world.
Continue reading: https://www.governing.com/next/what-obstacles-does-government-ai-still-have-to-overcome
