North Dakota CIO Shawn Riley was one of the most bullish about emerging tech. “If you’re not looking ahead, you’re dying,” he said.
The list of forward-leaning projects in North Dakota is long, from what Riley reported is becoming the largest out-of-line-of-sight system drone test spaces in the world at 70,000 square miles to about 1 billion IoT sensors — no small number for a state with a population under 1 million. In addition, they plan to automate 20 percent of the state workforce, and given a low unemployment rate and nearly a quarter of his employees being eligible for retirement in the next four years, Riley called automation a “survival tactic.”
But the CIO keeps the potential ethical implications of emerging tech in mind, and notes that technology is not inherently good or evil. State Chief Data Officer Dorman Bazzell is leading an advisory board to look at the ethical implications of technology and ensure that new systems are put in place in everyone’s best interest.
