The working group, the AI and Analytics Center of Excellence (AI CoE), launched Thursday and will serve as a subcommittee of the state’s Data and Transparency Panel.
Arkansas is not the first state to create an AI working group. Connecticut has done so, and California lawmakers are considering creating a group focused on “artificial intelligence in public schools.” And at the federal level, an AI working group in the Senate similarly aims to shape AI policy. Other states, like Washington, are using task forces to shape their AI policy.
In Arkansas, its Chief Data Officer Robert McGough will chair the AI CoE. The working group will have several key functions: to study the technologies; make recommendations on policy, guidelines and best practices; and to evaluate specific pilot projects involving AI.
The Arkansas Division of Workforce Services’ unemployment insurance fraud project and the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ recidivism reduction project have been selected to serve as initial AI use cases for AI CoE.
Priority focus areas for the pilot use cases are efficiency, cost saving, safety and economic development. The group will meet monthly for one year, and must provide an initial report on these pilot projects to the governor by Dec. 15. (Washington state’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force, by comparison, has a two-year duration. Connecticut’s AI working group, established in June 2023, ended in February 2024.)
“As we work to find efficiencies within state government, AI can play a role, with appropriate guardrails, in improving our level of service to Arkansans while keeping costs low,” Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a news release. “This working group will build the knowledge base we need to achieve those goals safely.”
The AI CoE will establish comprehensive guidelines focused on accountability, autonomy, bias, data sets, ethical use, intellectual property ownership, privacy and security, and transparency.
“AI is already transforming the face of business in America, and Arkansas’ state government can’t get caught flat-footed,” Sanders stated.
Former Arkansas CTO Jonathan Askins previously toldGovernment Technology that the state would be taking a cautious approach to generative AI, to ensure it is implemented in a way that mitigates bias and inaccuracy.
