At a Philadelphia City Council hearing on AI in government this week, city technology officials affirmed the city\u2019s commitment to responsible use of technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the city\u2019s chief information officer, Melissa Scott, and Mayor Cherelle Parker\u2019s chief legal counsel, Kristin Bray \u2013 who also oversees Philly Stat 360, a city best-practices agency \u2013 failed to offer details and, in many cases, to answer basic questions, leaving those in attendance unconvinced of Philadelphia\u2019s readiness for the rapidly evolving cyberspace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an open-book test, and they failed,\u201d Rue Landau, the council\u2019s tech committee chair, told City & State afterward. \u201cIt was definitely concerning to not have them come prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response from a packed room of community members at Philly CAM, a multimedia center, was just as damning. Against a backdrop of signs bearing messages like \u201cAI is watching us \u2013 who is watching AI,\u201d one speaker called the city\u2019s presentation \u201cembarrassing,\u201d and another grumbled, \u201cWe about to get played.\u201d Again and again, speakers raised serious and urgent concerns about privacy, surveillance and the accountability of both AI-wielding agencies and the big-tech behemoths managing the data.<\/p>\n
Prior to the Wednesday hearing, Landau said, she had submitted a list of questions to Philadelphia\u2019s technology officials. But Scott and Bray offered few specifics about Philadelphia\u2019s current uses of AI or its safeguards to protect residents\u2019 privacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to Landau\u2019s direct questions, the officials repeatedly told Landau they would need to get back to her with answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I heard you say that you\u2019re not using AI in the realm of public safety here in Philadelphia,\u201d Landau asked Scott at one point.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, to our knowledge, we\u2019re not,\u201d Scott answered.<\/p>\n
Landau responded that the City of Philadelphia does, in fact, currently use several AI tools in public safety, including facial recognition and gunshot-detection technologies as well as drones.<\/p>\n
Bray said that the city plans to issue formal AI guidelines for employees in spring 2026, and Scott repeatedly gave the example of training employees to take precautions while uploading data into software programs. But as many panelists pointed out, the scope of AI runs the gamut.<\/p>\n
Landau said that she was especially concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence \u2013 and its potential for abuses \u2013 on the city\u2019s most vulnerable populations. That concern was echoed by numerous panelists and community members, who worried about the unintended consequences of poorly regulated AI on everything from employment to criminal justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis technology is moving very fast,\u201d Landau said. With a U.S. Supreme Court that \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem very set on enforcing the current laws that we have,\u201d she called on the city to step up and define safeguards to avoid \u201cperpetuating discrimination, perpetuating inequities.\u201d<\/p>\n
That concern was echoed by panelist Alli Finn of the AI Now Institute. \u201cWith the push for deregulation on AI at the federal level, it is local governments, such as this one, that are on the front lines of protecting constituents,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Landau challenged Bray and Scott about how the city is protecting residents\u2019 sensitive information from potential misuses by AI vendors \u2013 for instance, endangering immigrants by making data available to immigration authorities. Other speakers raised worries about technologies that could track residents\u2019 whereabouts and activities or misidentify people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat oversight do you have with a company \u2026 to make sure that they are not changing the terms of what they\u2019re using with your data?\u201d Landau asked. Scott\u2019s answer \u2013 about training and security assessments \u2013 failed to satisfy Landau, as did Bray\u2019s repeated but vague assertions about the city\u2019s commitment to responsible use.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Jim Harrity was among the speakers raising concerns about the city\u2019s strategy around potentially invasive technology, which he called \u201ca slippery slope.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He acknowledged he was \u201cvery leery\u201d of AI, referencing the 2002 dystopian film \u201cMinority Report,\u201d in which police use technology to arrest people before they commit crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to give up my freedom for somebody else\u2019s idea of safety,\u201d he said, drawing applause. \u201cWe need to be very careful \u2026 There are consequences to things we do now, down the line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to the human consequences of surveillance gone amok, Harrity also cautioned that misuse of AI public safety tools could lead to expensive lawsuits, as has happened in other municipalities.<\/p>\n
At one point, Landau asked Scott to identify the city\u2019s AI experts. Scott responded: \u201cIf anyone in the world would say that they were an AI expert, they will be lying, because it\u2019s continuously transforming.\u201d<\/p>\n
But several speakers testified that they were, in fact, AI experts \u2013 including Finn; fellow panelist Sorelle Friedler, a Haverford College computer science professor who previously worked at Google; and Kendra Albert, a Philadelphia-based technology lawyer and nationally recognized scholar in algorithmic justice who has worked at Harvard Law School\u2019s Cyberlaw Clinic.<\/p>\n
Landau told City & State later that she is confident that Philadelphia\u2019s robust academic and technology communities include AI experts, and hoped that the city\u2019s proposed AI governance committee would engage them. She also vowed to convene many more hearings to address the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know firsthand that we are not the most advanced, technologically\u201d speaking, she said of Philadelphia city government, adding that she was concerned about a poorly conceived \u201cscramble to catch up.\u201d \u201cWe should be far more along in creating policies and systems and oversight and monitoring and educating our city employees than we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a Philadelphia City Council hearing on AI in government this week, city technology officials affirmed the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":312072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,10325,153,158,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-312071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-city-council","13":"tag-policy","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115392373313685535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}