Governing in the Age of AI – Part 1

What if AI Isn't Just a Tool?

AI is no longer simply automating tasks like drafting emails or summarizing meetings. In cities across the nation, it's already deciding what's important, shaping agendas, and quietly influencing whose voices are amplified and whose are diminished.

Yet, this transformation isn't primarily about technology. It's about presence.

We typically begin our conversations about AI by asking:

"What can this tool do for us?"

But embedded in that question is a dangerous assumption. It assumes that our civic institutions remain unchanged when AI enters. What if the truth is more complicated?

AI systems do more than fill a gap or speed up a task. They behave more like new species introduced into an ecosystem. They interact, evolve, adapt, and sometimes disrupt. They reshape workflows, expectations, relationships, and institutional norms. — Fragile Systems

Local government isn't a machine we can simply tune for greater speed. It's a complex, living system of relationships, culture, history, trust, and discretion. When we introduce AI into this living system, we're not just automating tasks; we're reshaping the ecosystem itself.

This is why the manner of AI adoption matters as much as or perhaps more than the technology itself.

The Alliance for Innovation articulated this critical tension clearly in their recent report:

Cities that refuse to be involved in expanding AI stifle creativity and the improvement of citizen services, while moving forward without safeguards has many unintended consequences. — Alliance for Innovation AI Introductory Report, 2024

This dynamic between adoption and thoughtful governance is precisely where many of us find ourselves today. The greatest danger with AI is not failure. It's not cybersecurity or hallucinations. The greatest danger, and one that will have the most devastating consequences, is misalignment.

In a recent guest column for Barrett and Greene Inc., I wrote:

I want to propose that we need to go beyond asking whether AI works and begin to question what happens when AI works. The stakes for local governments are too high for us to risk not asking the right questions. — "Rethinking the Motivation for AI"

AI demands courage and clarity. To govern wisely, we need more than efficiency, we need presence and stewardship.

This is why I wrote Fragile Systems. Not to offer quick solutions, but to provoke deeper questions:

• What kind of system are we inviting AI into?
• How will AI shift the relationships we rely on?
• What values will it quietly reinforce or diminish?

Without these questions, we risk creating governments that are streamlined, but hollow.

🔜 Up Next – Part 2: The Efficiency Illusion I'll explore why the relentless pursuit of efficiency often undermines the subtle, critical work of trust, discretion, and legitimacy in local government.

Stay tuned.