At NSW Government we are stepping up our use of emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), in areas where these technologies have the greatest potential to improve our lives. To demonstrate how we are using AI to improve government services, we are developing a series of case studies.
Last year, NSW Government released its first Artificial Intelligence Strategy (AI Strategy) which focuses on using AI to improve service delivery and government decision-making. We know that AI has the capacity to quickly process large amounts of data and provide data-driven insights, supporting problem solving and decision-making to maximise efficiency and service delivery. This increased productivity and potentially reduced costs means taxpayer funds can be redirected to other critical services.
The AI Strategy has been informed by in-depth consultation with industry, the university sector, government and non-government organisations. During consultation, our stakeholders told us that we need to build public sector AI capability to ensure we are using it in a safe, appropriate and transparent way which the citizens of NSW can easily understand. This feedback has informed the first two pillars of the AI Strategy: Building Public Trust and Digital Uplift.
Building Public Trust
Trust is built through evidence. Showcasing our work to the public is the best way to start building that trust. That’s why we’re publishing a series of case studies over the coming months. The case studies will give an ‘under the hood’ look at the process the NSW Government follows when developing and implementing an AI project - from identifying that an AI tool should be deployed, to building or procuring the AI tool, all the way to testing and iterating the final product to ensure that it is constantly improving.
Each case study will stress test one project against the AI Strategy and complementary AI Ethics policy to show how every time we use AI, we are ensuring that we do so in alignment with the key ethical principles of Community Benefit, Fairness, Privacy and Security, Transparency and Accountability. The case studies also demonstrate how we use AI as a tool to support government decision making. AI is not a decision-maker, responsibility for decisions always remains with a human in NSW Government.
Digital Uplift
As citizens increasingly expect seamless and responsive interactions with government that cater to their unique needs, public sector employees need the capabilities to harness emerging technologies that will allow us to design services and policies in a customer-centric way to meet those expectations.
As part of a commitment by NSW Government to uplift digital and customer, the NSW Public Service Commission co-designed with sector stakeholders a Digital and Customer Capability Framework.
The Framework identifies the six digital and customer capabilities requiring immediate uplift across the sector to enable NSW to meet the Premier’s Priority of being the world’s best public service. The Framework underpins the digital and customer capability work (including AI) in NSW Government. Our case studies bring to life the PSC’s Digital and Customer Capability Framework and showcase how through collaboration, project teams applied digital and customer capabilities to implement each AI tool.
The Case Studies
Four case studies will be published in the coming months with the first being published next week. Each case study will demonstrate how the NSW Government, is developing AI responsibly with a clear focus on outcomes so that the community can have trust that the technology is being used appropriately.
Revenue NSW uses artificial intelligence to identify and support customers facing hardship