The Metropolis of Seattle is interviewing candidates for a Metropolis AI Officer place to steer how synthetic intelligence is utilized throughout departments and workplaces.
The brand new job is according to town’s latest launch of a “accountable AI plan,” which offers tips for Seattle’s use of synthetic intelligence and its assist of the AI tech sector as an financial driver.
The CAIO will report back to Rob Lloyd, town’s chief know-how officer, who stated the job posting attracted 3,000 visits within the first week it was reside. From roughly 40 extremely certified candidates, 9 are being invited to interview, with backgrounds starting from the non-public sector, federal authorities and academia.
Lloyd, who began as CTO final 12 months, stated the “very aggressive” applicant pool additionally features a few ex-Microsoft workers. A rent needs to be made by subsequent week.
“We created town AI plan [because] there’s a lot of issues that occur with AI for a corporation to be efficient at it,” Lloyd instructed GeekWire. “We outlined a pair domains of exercise that we have now to achieve success at.”
The CAIO will handle these domains, together with:
- Technical excellence and orchestration: The town’s AI plan ensures that infrastructure, programming, knowledge, and course of engineering are aligned below a coordinated technique. Lloyd stated success depends upon an “elite-level AI knowledgeable” to supervise frameworks, know-how, and coaching.
- Studying, skilling, and accountable adoption: With 39 departments, town should construct a shared understanding of AI use. The main focus is on stopping “AI product sprawl” and aligning options with metropolis priorities — equivalent to funds directives and govt orders—whereas enhancing AI literacy, constant terminology, and consciousness of AI’s affect on workflows and other people.
- Partnerships and neighborhood activation: The plan connects inside AI efforts with academia, startups, and native organizations to strengthen Seattle’s AI ecosystem. By fostering collaboration and shared understanding round AI security and innovation, town enhances each its capabilities and its position as a accountable neighborhood associate, Lloyd stated.
Using AI has the power to reshape how quite a few metropolis departments do their work and serve residents. Lloyd pointed to adoption already below approach within the Seattle Division of Transportation, the place AI and recreation concept are getting used to investigate areas with greater accident charges and discover patterns and anomalies in reviews and assist speed up design choices so protected intersections could be engineered.
Public utilities, public security and allowing are additionally ripe for AI disruption, Lloyd stated, however the strategy is to reinforce human staff, not automate and displace them.
“There may be loads of house we will take a look at the place employees are overwhelmed,” he stated. “We’re not attending to the response degree that we aspire to, and there’s areas the place we need to make selections even smarter, even quicker. We are able to take AI and concentrate on these issues, to not displace jobs, however to get to the service ranges and resolution making that we need to create.”
Seattle has been a frontrunner in creating steering for AI use, and claims to be the primary within the nation to subject a generative AI coverage within the fall of 2023. The town has insurance policies requiring “human-in-the-loop” oversight, the place workers should overview generative AI outputs earlier than official use and attribute any AI-assisted work to the precise know-how.
In relation to the brand new AI officer and the AI plan, Lloyd careworn the significance of “ensuring that we concentrate on our values and the way we apply AI within the group and the neighborhood.”
The annual wage for the CAIO position is between $125,000 and $188,000, in line with the job posting.
Whoever comes away with the job will be a part of a metropolis authorities that’s keen and capable of work with a lot of native “belongings,” as Lloyd referred to as them, together with the College of Washington, AI Home, AI2, Plug & Play, and extra.
“We’re the second greatest epicenter of AI expertise,” he stated. “It will be a very unhappy factor if we didn’t make the most of that chance and play to that energy.”
Keep forward of the curve with NextBusiness 24. Discover extra tales, subscribe to our publication, and be a part of our rising neighborhood at nextbusiness24.com
