AI Risks Creating a ‘Demand Machine’ for Governments, Report Warns

Route Fifty covered RethinkAI's piece on how artificial intelligence will increase demand for government services before it increases efficiency.

For several years, state and local leaders have argued that artificial intelligence will make work smoother for their government employees by taking away the menial jobs and allowing them to focus on more rewarding tasks.

But a recent report from nonprofit New America argued that, in fact, AI will increase demand for government services by making it easier for residents to interact with their governments, ramping up their service requests and overwhelming existing systems and processes with those requests.

“In practice, AI acts less like a labor-saving device and more like a demand machine,” the report says. “It lowers barriers for residents to request services, apply for benefits, file complaints, and seek help, thereby surfacing needs that were previously hidden by friction, time, or bureaucratic complexity. The result is not less work for governments, but more and often different work.”

The report comes as states and localities have turned to AI for all manner of tasks, notably in their nonemergency lines like 311 that are used to answer resident questions and fix any issues they may experience. Conceivably, according to the research, if governments do not have processes in place to deal with extra demand, they could face a situation where a resident reports a pothole on a Monday, expects it to be done quicker as their interaction with government has less friction, then is disappointed when it is not completed quickly.