Digital Government and AI

Description

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in government reflects the growth in the use of AI in the economy and in society generally. It is being driven on the one side by technical advances in a number of areas such as machine learning, neural nets and deep learning and on the other by economic forces as many governments continue to try to provide ever more services with ever fewer resources. AI offers enormous potential to reduce the cost of (for example) delivering personalised and customised services to citizens. On the other hand, machines are not accountable and there are opaque and proprietary black boxes already being used to make decisions that can have fundamental effects of the lives of ordinary citizens. The focus of this mini track is on both current uses and potential uses of AI and invites contributions on the benefits and risks as well as on the control, regulation and governance of this technology. While we envisage papers in this track being on the use of AI in public administration, the mini-track also welcomes papers in areas and on topics which come within the wider public sector such as policing and health. It excludes, however, areas such as national security and the military. We are also open to considering papers that look at the regulation of AI more generally. Amongst the dimensions of AI in government that might be addressed are:

• Adoption and implementation of AI in public organizations
• Impacts on public governance
• Economics
• Ethics
• Controlling AI
• Governance of AI and algorithms generally
• Risk management
• Legal issues
• Emerging technologies and their implications
• Impacts in specific sectors
• Societal implications
• Privacy
• Organizational implications
• Transparency
• Accountability
• Explainability
• Outsourcing of AI
• Trust in AI

We welcome submissions with diverse views and methodologies. The goal of this mini track is to promote critical discussion on the current status and future trajectory AI in digital government.

Mini-track papers should be submitted online via the HICSS submission system by June 15, 2021 (11:59 pm HST).

Minitrack Leaders

Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen is an associate professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance. His research interests include digital government, citizen trust, transparency and experimental methodology. He has published in top journals in the field of public administration and management, such as Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Government Information Quarterly, Public Administration Review and Public Management Review. Furthermore, Stephan is associate editor for the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. His research is funded by, amongst others, the Dutch Research Council and the funding scheme of the European Commission (Horizon 2020).

Lemuria Carter is the Head of School of the School of Information Systems and Technology Management at the University of New South Wales. Her research interests include technology adoption, digital government and privacy. She has published in several top-tier journals including the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Information Systems Journal and Decision Support Systems. She currently serves as an e-government track for the Americas Conference on Information Systems and mini-track chair for digital government theory at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Her research has been funded by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions and the Southeastern Transportation Institute in the United States

Frank Bannister is a Fellow Emeritus and a former Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin. He has published extensively both in his pre-academic professional career and in his academic career. His publications include two books and a number of co-edited books as well as a large number of peer reviewed articles in journals such as Government Information Quarterly, Information Policy, the European Journal of Information Systems, Management Decision and the Information Systems Journal. He was founding editor of the European Journal of Electronic Government and for eleven years co-chair of the Permanent Study Group on e-Government within the European Group for Public Administration. During his career he has undertaken advisory work in e-government for the Irish government, the European Commission and the United Nations. He is an Associate Editor for Information Polity and has in the past served as an Associate Editor for Government Information Quarterly and a number of other journals.

Mila Gascó-Hernández holds a MBA and a Ph. D. in public policy evaluation. She is the Research Director of the CTG UAlbany as well as an Associate Professor at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, both at the University at Albany – SUNY. Before joining SUNY, Dr. Gasco Hernandez served as a senior researcher at the Institute of Governance and Public Management (currently known as ESADEgov - Center for Public Governance) and the Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Management, both at ESADE Business & Law School in Spain. Her areas of research are mainly related to information and technology in government and, among other, they include electronic and open government, e-governance, public sector innovation, smart cities, and public policy evaluation. In addition, she has worked for a wide variety of organizations such as the United Nations Development Program, the Mayor’s Office in Valencia (Venezuela), the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, the City Council and the Provincial Council of Barcelona, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the Latin American Centre on Management for Development, the World E-Governments Organization of Cities and Local Governments, the Inter-American Development Bank, or Google.