Former LA mayor Garcetti joins AI company

Former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has called on governments to recognise their role as regulators, enablers and providers of artificial intelligence (AI) following his appointment as an adviser to AI company Metropolis.

Speaking to Cities Today, Garcetti, who later served as US Ambassador to India, said governments need to become safe, trusted and cutting-edge users of AI while protecting residents’ personal information.

“Government has to recognise its triple role as regulator, enabler, and provider of AI in accountable and effective ways,” he said.

Garcetti will advise Metropolis on public-private partnerships, policy and urban infrastructure strategy as the company expands its technology across mobility and other urban environments.

He said governments and technology companies need people who understand both emerging technologies and the everyday needs of communities.

“We have very skilled people in technology who have little experience running cities or building local communities, and we have community and government leaders who often don’t understand technology and how it works,” Garcetti said.

“The communities and companies that will best build successful futures will be the ones who are fluent in both the needs of everyday city residents and the cutting-edge technologies that can give us time back and create more connection to one another.”

Garcetti said the public sector’s ability to reach entire populations gives it an important role in deploying new technology, but governments must be prepared to experiment.

“The public sector is the only thing that can scale up to touch everyone, but successful governments need to be willing to take risks, innovate, fail forward, and not be stuck 10 or 20 years behind private sector convenience and innovation,” he said.

Early use of AI

Garcetti pointed to early applications of AI and data during his tenure as mayor of Los Angeles, a position he held before becoming ambassador.

“We debuted the first smart chatbots in government when I was mayor of Los Angeles and shared our data to help people build useful AI models and make sure that they knew how to help citizens be empowered about their local government,” he said.

As ambassador, Garcetti said he also saw AI used to help diplomats develop narratives and free employees from routine work such as translating newspaper articles. This allowed them to spend more time building relationships with journalists and media organisations.

However, he cautioned that greater collaboration is needed between AI companies and public-sector employees.

“The interaction can’t just be a one-way transactional street; it needs to be a two-way street that quickly shares lessons and listens to the perspectives from government leaders who are the firewall against unwanted outcomes,” he said.

Drawing on more than two decades in local government, Garcetti said the technology companies that proved most valuable were those that first sought to understand a city’s problems.

He recalled working with a networking equipment company that helped Los Angeles improve how it communicated with residents. He also highlighted a geographic information system platform that allowed employees from different departments to produce visual maps and share geographical data.

The platform improved cooperation across departments while also making information available to residents, technology professionals and students outside government.

“My message to companies working with governments is listen before you sell, help leaders build successful outcomes to challenging problems instead of just pushing a product that is pre-packaged in a mass way,” Garcetti said.

Image: Brphoto | Dreamstime.com