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FRANKFORT, Ky. (Aug. 13, 2024) — For nearly a year, the Commonwealth Office of Technology (COT) has worked to learn all it can about artificial intelligence technology.
Ruth Day, chief information officer at COT, told the Kentucky legislature’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force what the agency has learned and how it’s being used by state government on Tuesday.
“Since we are early in the journey, I can tell you that’s very limited use,” Day said. COT currently has a list of all the AI tools that have been procured, but how they’re being used is decided agency-by-agency, she added.
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services, for example, is using a generative AI tool to identify on its self-service portal where users are spending most of their time to indicate where users might be having difficulty with the portal, Day said.
COT currently has 30 AI tools available for agency use, according to Day. In order to ensure ethical usage and privacy protection, COT is also drafting a new AI policy that will strengthen the agency’s current technology usage policies.
Additionally, Day said COT has been using a process called Kentucky Information Technology Standards during the AI tech procurement process. Staff is also undergoing annual training on AI.
In September 2023, COT held an “AI Day” where Day and other staff met with several companies like Google and Microsoft about AI.
“The key takeaway that my team and I heard … was understand that generative AI, like ChatGPT, is powerful. But know what you put into those public, free models are then in the public domain,” Day said.
Being aware of bias, data quality, privacy and other accuracy issues were also topics of concern.
“In all use cases of generative AI, there must be human oversight and human review of the output,” Day added.
Co-chair Sen. Amanda Mays Bledsoe, R-Lexington, asked: “Do you feel like we have a good handle on employees being wise about their uses?”
Day said she does, however, COT is still working on understanding how to use all the AI tools currently available.
Following up on that topic, Co-chair Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mount Vernon, asked Day what the state can expect to see with AI in the next two years.
“Will we see AI maybe within the unemployment system to maybe help process some of these claims?” Bray asked. “Nationally, we’ve seen an uptick in unemployment insurance claims. The markets have kind of appeared to cool off, and there are some that think we’re headed towards a recession. Is the commonwealth prepared for that?”
Day said the future of AI in Kentucky is being discussed every day.
“I’m not familiar with all the workings of the unemployment insurance, but I do know they have had great success in this optical character recognition,” Day said. “It’s not the stuff you knew 10 years ago. It’s come a long, long way, and they have a high level of accuracy.”
With the 2025 legislative session in mind, Senate Minority Caucus Chair Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, asked Day when the policy COT is drafting will be finished.
“We, as a task force, would like to see your report prior to us formulating what we’re going to be doing beginning in January,” he said.
Day said the hope is to have the policy finished before Thanksgiving.
Tuesday was the second meeting of the Artificial Intelligence Task Force. The special committee is tasked with studying AI systems and how they’re being used by Kentucky government agencies and other states.
The task force will also provide recommendations on how Kentucky’s use of AI systems would benefit state agencies and the legislative initiatives needed to provide consumer protection in the private and public sectors.
The task force’s next meeting is currently scheduled for 11 a.m. on Sept. 10.
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