The Government is Using AI to Better Serve the Public
The United States stands to benefit significantly from harnessing the opportunities of AI to improve government services. The federal government is leveraging AI to better serve the public across a wide array of use cases, including in healthcare, transportation, the environment, and benefits delivery. The federal government is also establishing strong guardrails to ensure its use of AI keeps people safe and doesn’t violate their rights.
Current as of September 1, 2023.
AI for patent search
In order to process patent applications, the US Patent and Trademark Office must determine how similar patent applications are to the state of the prior art. The USPTO is using AI to assist examiners with finding relevant documents and additional prior art areas to search to help them in adjudicating new patent applications.
AI to analyze weather hazards
Excessive heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States, disproportionately affecting low-income individuals and people of color. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) utilizes AI to analyze urban heat islands, where a highly-developed community or neighborhood experiences much warmer temperatures than nearby areas. By studying urban heat islands with AI, NOAA can work to protect the public from extreme weather.
AI to expedite benefits determinations
The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses AI to expedite determinations for disability benefits by identifying readily-available medical evidence that meets SSA’s requirements.
AI to model soil moisture
Soil moisture information provides key data for agricultural and climate monitoring. The Department of Energy is modeling soil moisture with machine learning. These estimates play an important role in drought and flood forecasting, forest fire prediction, water supply management, among other natural resource activities.
AI to process veteran feedback
The Department of Veterans Affairs seeks feedback from Veterans on their experience interacting with the VA in order to improve Veterans’ experience. The VA is using AI to automatically group free-text comments into topic areas to ensure that major trends are captured, and to facilitate processing and effective case management of comments. All of these efforts ensure that the VA can best serve the needs of Veterans.