Policy-making is a dynamic field which evolves and orients itself with the changes in society, economy, polity, technology, institutional structure or transnational forces such as globalization. It is a complex process which demands optimum utilization of resources, cooperation and coordination of a diverse set of actors. It is an innovative domain whereby multiple actors are involved in arriving at decisions. Since every policy has to be validated with substantial data and deliberation, the policy largely fails due to the misinterpretation of data. There comes the role of technological interception such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the level of accuracy, and augmentation in policy making. With the integration of AI technologies into governmental practices and public-sector ecosystems, traditional mechanisms of decision-making and enforcement may quickly shift. Governments may leverage AI technologies to enhance the standard of public services, build citizen trust, and boost service delivery efficiency and effectiveness. There are many opportunities for policymakers globally as a result of the expanding usage of AI in the public policy sector.
Potential of AI in Public Policy and Governance
AI can help decision-makers in a variety of ways. AI can help in quickly discovering recurrent patterns and extracting insights from vast datasets. With the capability to detect anomalies in data and make intelligent predictions, AI can be employed in all areas of public policy from the top down. To reduce financial fraud, the models can be used to spot irregularities in financial records. In addition, performing most tasks and activities by hand would take a long time and be difficult in any area of the public sector. According to a Delloite survey, automating government workers’ jobs might result in labour savings of between 96.7 million and 1.2 billion hours annually, or between 3.3 billion and 41.1 billion.
Many processes are streamlined by AI, which lowers the potential for human error and frees people from tedious work so they can focus on more important tasks. Government staff might be able to concentrate on more crucial activities as a result, which would speed up the delivery of services to the general public. One of the longer-term benefits of introducing AI into policymaking is the potential to break down the watertight separation between education, health, and labour while framing policies. The separation acts as a wall and prevents the sharing of data from one department to another leading to overlapping programmes. In many countries, layers of social benefit programs generate waste and unintended consequences. For a government struggling with framing proper policies, AI can help put resources where they will deliver the best results, whether that’s employment, education, or housing support.
AI has numerous applications. Using facial recognition on border crossings and license plate detection, it can establish local safety and reduce criminal activity. Better security anywhere from schools to the streets and national borders is another great advantage of AI that is partially exercised now. With the advancement in technology such as computer vision, object detection, drone tracking, and camera-based traffic systems, government organizations can easily and effectively analyze crash data and highlight areas with a high likelihood of accidents, thus preventing future mishaps. Moreover, AI allows real-time tracking of patients’ health. This involves keeping an eye on things like weight, height, blood sugar, stress levels, and heart rate and feeding that data to AI healthcare systems that can alert clinicians to any potential problems. Governments may use AI to offer citizens efficient health care. For instance, AI had an impact on the pandemic’s COVID-19 virus detection and management.
Configuring AI in India
Since governments are already experimenting with and integrating AI into service delivery and operations, the time is to use AI to promote sound policymaking. Keeping the potential of AI in mind, the development, adoption and promotion of AI have been prioritized by the Indian Government. The Union government increased its spending on research, training, and skill development in new technologies like AI by 100% in 2018. Several efforts that are entirely focused on AI have also arisen, even though AI has been included as an important aspect of digital technologies generally. Setting up of Artificial intelligence task force, setting up committees to prepare a roadmap for the national AI programme by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and NITI Aayog’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence are a few such examples. However, the development of AI in India has been largely a fragmented policy process. There is no single regulatory body, ministry or department that works primarily to understand the implications and opportunities arising out of AI. Unfortunately, the efforts have been largely ad hoc.
Challenges
Although AI has significant potential benefits, attaining them is not always easy. Data is the new currency, it is often said. The public sector can benefit from AI’s data-driven approach, but the human element is frequently overlooked. Another challenge is preventing bias in data. The AI model is sometimes biased towards certain sects and communities, and the use of public data puts its privacy at risk. Since AI depends on data to improve performance, it sometimes ends up exacerbating real-world sentiments of racism, sexism, and violence. It is difficult to imagine creating a model that doesn’t discriminate by gender, race, age, and other characteristics and only concentrates on establishing a fair and well-off society via effective decision-making.
The use of AI in government increases citizens’ trust towards governance, but at the same time, it may also reduce citizens’ trust in governance. The decrease can be due to a number of reasons: violation of citizens’ privacy, or lack of fairness in using AI for governance. Emergence of the public sector fully immersed in AI, people will be “watched” everywhere. No doubt, smart detection systems could track criminal activity efficiently and mitigate it altogether by easily locating criminals but that will come at the cost of the government having access to immense data on residents’ whereabouts. Additional challenges arise from unclear responsibility and accountability.
Ways to address the challenges
As discussed the major concerns include ethical and responsible use of AI, avoiding bias and discrimination, and ensuring transparency and accountability. AI research has received significant attention in recent years due to its remarkable progress.. However, various knowledge gaps still exist. Compared to the private sector, there is less knowledge concerning AI challenges associated particularly with the public sector. Policymakers should encourage innovation and research into the development of AI systems that are designed to promote social good and address pressing societal challenges. This can involve providing funding for research in areas such as healthcare, climate change, and poverty reduction, as well as incentivizing the development of AI systems that prioritize ethical considerations over profit and commercial interests.
Policymakers should prioritize transparency and accountability in AI development and implementation. This can involve requiring AI systems to be explainable and auditable so that their decision-making processes can be scrutinized and understood. Policymakers can also promote the development of tools and techniques for detecting and mitigating bias in AI systems, as well as establishing clear guidelines for the responsible use of AI. It’s important that both machine learning and deep learning models be provided with training data before the model can fully function later on to make educated implications from that data.
Another important strategy is to involve a diverse range of stakeholders in policy discussions surrounding AI. This includes engaging with experts in fields such as computer science, ethics, and law, as well as seeking input from members of the public who may be impacted by AI technologies. By bringing together diverse perspectives, policymakers can ensure that their decisions are informed by a wide range of considerations and are more likely to be equitable and effective.
Overall, addressing the challenges posed by AI in policymaking requires a multifaceted approach that prioritizes transparency, accountability, diversity, and social responsibility. By taking these strategies into account, policymakers can help to ensure that AI is developed and used in ways that benefit society as a whole.
Conclusion
AI holds immense potential for improving government services. With advanced technologies, government agencies can cut labour costs, enhance accuracy and precision, avoid overlapping of programmes, speed up processes, save man-hours and provide smooth and quicker services to the public. The need is to realize that AI can enable a comprehensive, faster, and more rigorous approach to policymaking in the short run however, it can not replace policymakers. Its algorithm can reinforce existing discriminatory practices, and can also result in a breach of privacy.
At the moment, the solution to these shortcomings is to use AI responsibly prioritizing accountability, transparency, and fairness. Government need to responsibly embrace AI and other digital technologies to enhance human decision-making. The best path is to harness the potential of AI in public policy but not withdraw human interference from the process entirely to fill in the gaps that AI can miss.
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