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Members of City Council participate in a hearing on artificial intelligence Wednesday, Oct. 15, at PhillyCAM. <\/p>\n
JACK TOMCZUK<\/p>\n
Mayor Cherelle Parker\u2019s administration plans to roll out artificial intelligence guidance and training for city employees in the coming weeks, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
The revelation came during a three-hour City Council meeting on AI, a first-of-its-kind hearing in Philadelphia<\/a> about the local government\u2019s use of the technology, according to Rue Landau, the legislator who organized the gathering.<\/p>\n Representatives from the mayor\u2019s team had few answers to questions about how AI is utilized for public safety and surveillance purposes, and no one from the police department testified.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI do not want to give up my freedoms for the sake of somebody else\u2019s idea of safety,\u201d Councilmember Jimmy Harrity said. \u201cI\u2019m very leery of this kind of technology.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Landau asked directly if the Parker administration would use AI to collaborate with President Trump\u2019s Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out his deportation campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll get back to you on that question,\u201d replied Kristin Bray, Parker\u2019s chief legal counsel and director of Philly Stat 360.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe city\u2019s non-answers today were shocking and disappointing,\u201d Devren Washington, founder of the Philly Tech Justice Coalition, said in a statement following the hearing. \u201cBut the people spoke clearly: we want parks and libraries, schools and jobs, not black box AI that makes our lives worse while making billionaires richer.\u201d<\/p>\n Melissa Scott, Parker\u2019s chief information officer, acknowledged concerns about municipal employees entering sensitive city data into AI chatbots, which could expose the information. That will be addressed in the forthcoming policy, and the city is nearing an agreement with Microsoft Copilot to create a sealed-off tool for local government workers, she added.<\/p>\n In late winter or early spring, the Parker administration will set up a cross-departmental AI governance committee to continuously review and update policies, Bray testified. As of now, the body will incorporate officials from the city\u2019s Office of Innovation and Technology, Law Department, Office of Human Resources and Chief Administrative Officer, she said.<\/p>\n Multiple lawmakers stressed the need to include the voices of residents or conduct an engagement process with citizens.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to consider what public input we can take,\u201d Bray told Council. Scott distinguished between machine learning programs that predict and sort information based on a particular algorithm and generative AI \u2013 such as ChatGPT \u2013 which creates \u201cnew\u201d content from data pulled from the internet.<\/p>\n \u201cIf anyone in the world would say they are an AI expert, they would be lying because it\u2019s continuously transforming, morphing into new technologies,\u201d Scott added.\n<\/p>\n The remark drew an audible response from those in attendance, many of whom were professors, attorneys and others who specialize in AI issues and were waiting to testify.\n<\/p>\n
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City Councilmember Rue Landau speaks during a hearing about artificial intelligence Wednesday, Oct. 15, at PhillyCAM. JACK TOMCZUK\n<\/p>\n