(C) Texas Tribune This story was originally published by Texas Tribune and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Blast: AI’s already in the Lege and you don’t even know it [1] [] Date: 2024-03 The next time TxDOT is on the scene of a crash before you even realize there’s been a standstill ahead, or if you see that state agencies are sending their invoices a little sooner, you might thank a computer. In the brave new world of artificial intelligence, the new Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council is already finding surprising ways Texas state agencies are using advanced computing to increase efficiency. The council has been meeting for less than a month, but their findings so far were enough to create some buzz at last week’s Texas Policy Summit. Last month, the Big 3 appointed members of the new Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, and the panel has wasted no time getting the ball rolling on investigating potential places for legislation. On Thursday, the council co-chairs, state Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, and state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, sat on a Policy Summit panel addressing the future of AI as it relates to state government mere hours after the advisory council held its first substantive meeting. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, which puts on the Texas Policy Summit, recently announced AI as one of its top legislative priorities for 2025. However, at the time they announced the priority policy areas, they had few specifics. Based on the panelists’ comments, it sounds like a few ideas might be coming together — and they didn’t turn to ChatGPT to help draft the list. “They’re probably no less than seven to eight, at least — maybe 10, or more — bill ideas that came out of the conversation this morning already,” Parker said. Capriglione pushed that benchmark to 10 or a dozen bills. “We heard from one agency who is already using it on their back end processing to do invoices,” he said. “They’ve gone from two to three weeks to do invoices to 13 seconds. It’s more accurate. It’s faster.” Thursday morning’s advisory council meeting was a wide-ranging three-hour session in which it heard testimony from the Department of Information Resources, the Department of Transportation, the Workforce Commission and the Teacher Retirement System. DIR privacy attorney Jennie Hoelscher told the council that there’s a broad mix of how state agencies are approaching AI, including “generative AI,” like ChatGPT or Copilot. “There are some agencies that have very restrictive rules about the use of AI within their agencies,” Hoelscher said. “There are other agencies that are very open to employees using generative AI in particular, so there is a broad spectrum.” Agencies have mostly been using AI to increase efficiency and productivity, added John Hoffman, who doubles as DIR’s chief technology officer and the deputy chief information officer for Texas. Yes, agencies are using chatbots, but it’s more than that. “The resources are limited. The requirements are high. It’s ‘how are we using AI to best provide that,’” Hoffman told the council. TxDOT said it is testing and using AI in incident detection to more quickly deploy crews, user access management, automated invoicing (as Capriglione noted) and machine learning for video analytics on traffic cameras. Those video analytics help identify traffic disruptions, from crashes and debris to pedestrians on highways, and measure things like vehicle counts and speeds. In the future, TxDOT is exploring using AI for chatbots, fleet assessment and running analyses are where crashes are likely to occur. Parker and Capriglione were teasing a bit about the ever-ballooning potential pieces of legislation for the council to recommend when it publishes its final report sometime in November or December. Based on The Blast’s scan, here are areas where you could see policy proposals: Legislation designating DIR or another agency to write state AI policy Potentially creating a separate AI policy-making office Data privacy Cybersecurity It’s hard to find, but the AI Advisory Council has a new website where the agendas and video recordings will be posted. The link doesn’t appear in internet searches yet, so bookmark it until the AI gods at Google track it down. [END] --- [1] Url: https://mailchi.mp/texastribune/the-blast-ais-already-in-the-lege-and-you-dont-even-know-it Published and (C) by Texas Tribune Content appears here under this condition or license: Used with Permission: https://www.texastribune.org/republishing-guidelines/. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/texastribune/