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A Kentucky Town Experimented With AI. The Results Were Stunning
In a remarkable experiment, the city of Bowling Green in Kentucky has demonstrated a groundbreaking approach to civic engagement and governance through the strategic application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The experiment, which took place earlier this year, involved an unprecedented 8,000 residents participating in a month-long online survey on policy changes they wanted to see in their community over the next 25 years.
In an effort to increase participation, county officials partnered with local strategy firm and utilized an open-source online polling platform called Pol.is. The prompt was deliberately left open-ended, asking participants what they wanted to see in their community. Participants were then able to continue engaging by voting on other answers, which ultimately led to the collection of over a million responses.
After collecting data, AI tool Sensemaker analyzed and categorized the vast amount of input from residents into overarching topics, as well as analyzing agreements and disagreements among respondents. The results? A stunning 2,370 ideas that garnered at least 80% agreement among participants.
The data revealed some surprising common ground among the population. For instance, an overwhelming majority agreed on the need to increase healthcare specialists in the city, thus reducing reliance on services outside of their community. Other popular suggestions included repurposing empty retail spaces and expanding pedestrian infrastructure.
This experiment has shown that AI can be an effective tool in encouraging civic engagement, which has historically been a barrier for marginalized groups or those with conflicting schedules. Additionally, AI’s capabilities to automatically translate answers into multiple languages ensured that immigrant populations were well-represented, as seen through the participation of individuals like Daniel Tarnagda, an immigrant from Burkina Faso and founder of a local non-profit soccer team.
The success of this experiment has sparked interest in its potential application elsewhere.
Source: gizmodo.com
