让AI服务于公众：ALT视角

Making AI Work for thePublic: An ALT Perspective Neil Kleiman,Eric Gordon,&Mai-Ling Garcia RethinkAI Acknowledgments We would like to thank the Kresge Foundation and theChan Zuckerberg Initiative for their generous supportof this work. Special thanks also to all the subjectmatter expert interviewees who participated in ourresearch. Editorial disclosure: The views expressed in this reportare solely those of the authors and do not reflect theviews of New America, its staff, fellows, funders, orboard of directors. About the Authors Neil Kleimanis an urban policy professor atNortheastern University and a senior fellow at theBurnes Center for Social Change and the GovLab. Eric Gordonis a professor and director of the Centerfor Media Innovation & Social Impact at BostonUniversity. Mai-Ling Garciais the Director of EmergingTechnology and AI at the Bloomberg Centers forGovernment Excellence and Public Innovation at JohnsHopkins University. About New America We are dedicated to renewing the promise of Americaby continuing the quest to realize our nation’s highestideals, honestly confronting the challenges caused byrapid technological and social change, and seizing theopportunities those changes create. About RethinkAI RethinkAI builds ambitious pilots with city andcommunity leaders and then translates learnings fromthose efforts into concrete guidance, policyrecommendations, and an AI blueprint for everyone. About Technology and Democracy New America’s Technology and Democracy (T&D)programs work to foster a sustainable digital futurethat advances equitable opportunity, innovation,fundamental rights, and participatory governance—where democracy, human rights, and the planetflourish. Contents 6679910121216172025262734IntroductionAbout This Report and RethinkAIHow the Lessons of Civic Tech Can Inform Public Use of AIKey FindingsWhat’s Happening On the GroundThe ALT FrameworkAI in Government: A Field-Level ReviewWhat’s Happening in StatesWhat’s Happening in CitiesThe Experience of AI AdoptionSupporting InstitutionsEmerging ThemesRecommendations: An ALT FrameworkALT in ActionThe Leadership We Need Contents Cont’d 363620363637AppendixCreditsSupporting InstitutionsRethinkAIMethodsInterviewees Introduction In Boston’s Dorchester, a mixed-income and culturally diverse neighborhood,a community group was fed up with the city government’s misperceptions ofthe neighborhood. They wanted to represent themselves and what washappening in their own backyards. So they built an artificial intelligence (AI)tool to make it happen. The result, On the Porch, highlights the opportunity before all of us to changethe way the public sector serves our communities—to rethink the public sectorenterprise. The problem is that the public sector may not know this work in communities ishappening. It’s been focused on building its own capacity. Just in thefirst halfof 2025, attention to AI has dramatically increased: In the United States, 700state bills have advanced, many states are requiring on-the-job tech trainingand data literacy for all staff, and city-level pilots have mushroomed across thecountry. There is indeed a lot happening, but mostly it’s focused on improvingwhat government is already doing, not changing what it does.1 AI is certainly billed as boosting efficiency, but also as a revolutionarytechnology. We believe that while thefield has been focused on reforming, thereal opportunity is in transforming. We have some big ideas for how we can do it. About This Report and RethinkAI This work was conducted byRethinkAI: We are a coalition of researchers,activists, and practitioners long focused on the role of technology in the civicsector, brought together by the collective hunch that both the hype and the feararound AI are misplaced. Starting in the summer of 2023, we launched twoparallel efforts to make sense of what is happening—an ongoing survey oftrends and developments and a series of pilots with civic sector partners inthree cities. The ideas in this report were formed over the course of two years when weinterviewed 40 officials; ran pilots in Boston, New York City, and San Jose; andreviewed the state of play throughout the country. We conducted this work withtwo goals: (1) provide a sober evaluation of the current landscape and a clearunderstanding of what AI implementation looks like on the ground, and (2)propose an alternative, results-based framework for civic and governmentactors to incorporate AI into their work. How the Lessons of Civic Tech Can Inform Public Use of AI To harness AI effectively, civic sector leaders need to build on reform efforts ofthe past. To genuinely rebuild trust in our democracy, we need to put resultsand peoplefirst. On the city and state levels, we have an obligation to protectour institutions, and an opportunity to reshape them to better serve residents bybeing more adaptable and responsive to community needs. Our current moment is not entirely new. We have ridden tech wa