Governments always strive to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their socio-economic conditions or geographical location, have equal opportunities to benefit from public services. This goal is known as inclusive governance. to achieve this, governments are constantly developing the public sector through the use of advanced technologies such as generative artificial intelligence. its use in many countries has enhanced how citizens interact with government services, improving their accessibility. Generative artificial intelligence and improved accessibility:
Generative artificial intelligence facilitates access to public services, by reducing barriers that stand in front of marginalized groups such as: people with special needs and generative artificial intelligence helps to address such problems in several ways, most notably: chatbots and virtual assistants to provide continuous support to Citizens, for example: the German city of Heidelberg introduced an automated chat program called Lumi to help citizens and visitors quickly get answers to various queries, Lumi uses publicly available city data, and its performance improves over time based on user interactions. On the other hand, translation tools powered by generative artificial intelligence help to remove language barriers, enabling anyone who speaks other than the country's language to access important information and services in their own language, for example: the cities of Stockton and Fairfield in California have introduced a translation tool that residents can use via mobile phones or via the web, and this tool makes it possible to communicate with local governments in up to 71 different languages. In India, the Jugalbandi project utilizes AI-driven chatbots on WhatsApp and Telegram to assist rural communities in accessing government services in their native dialects. These chatbots can communicate through both text and speech, currently supporting ten languages and encompassing 171 government programs. On the other hand, the US Department of Justice has issued guidelines that oblige state and local governments to ensure access to their websites and mobile applications, and organizations are responding by developing AI-powered screen readers such as Voice for iOS and TalkBack for Android, allowing visually impaired individuals to navigate government websites and access information with complete independence. Generative artificial intelligence and holistic decision making:
Generative artificial intelligence helps the public sector in making comprehensive decisions. Comprehensive decisions refer to those that are fair and not biased by religion, ethnicity, social status, or economic status. A prominent example of making such decisions in the public sector is the increasing use of an automated recruitment process powered by generative artificial intelligence. This process entails reviewing resumes and applications in a manner that minimizes human bias by concealing personal information. It emphasizes the qualifications and experience pertinent to the position, ensuring that all candidates are assessed solely on their merits. Generative artificial intelligence and enhancing citizen participation: In addition to improving accessibility, generative AI helps to strengthen communication with citizens, when citizens call to inquire, human employees often have difficulty quickly finding the required data, which can sometimes fall short of citizens ' expectations. This is where AI-powered virtual assistants come in to address these challenges by providing personalized responses to citizens ' queries, for example: the US Citizenship and Immigration Services of the Department of Homeland Security has developed a chatbot named EMMA, this robot helps users with many services, such as immigration, green cards, passports, and supports English and Spanish. The Australian government is also utilizing a chatbot named Alex to assist individuals and companies with tax-related matters, such as property rights, income, deductions, and filing tax returns. This robot efficiently directs users to the required content, saving time and improving the overall user experience. How to ensure the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence in the public sector It is imperative to use generative artificial intelligence responsibly in the public sector to ensure that all citizens benefit from it fairly, and to achieve this, public sector institutions seek to formulate policies that address these challenges, and these policies are based on a set of key principles, such as: Transparency and interpretability:
Generative AI systems should be designed to work transparently, this means that these systems should be able to provide clear explanations of how decisions are made, and their processes should be understandable to non-experts, which in turn helps build trust and allows citizens to understand how and why decisions are made. Ensuring fairness and impartiality:
Generative AI systems can unintentionally maintain or increase the biases that already exist in the data trained on them, and to counter this problem, AI models should be regularly evaluated to avoid any possible biases and take corrective measures to address any existing problems. Prioritize data privacy and security:
One of the main challenges of using artificial intelligence in the public sector is to ensure the security of sensitive data, so it is imperative to take strict security measures to effectively use generative artificial intelligence. Strengthening accountability:
Accountability is an important aspect in the use of artificial intelligence in promoting inclusive governance. This includes the establishment of independent bodies or committees to monitor the deployment and effects of artificial intelligence systems, and to obtain feedback from the public to ensure that necessary adjustments and improvements are made. The examples that we mentioned in the article about the ways governments in different countries around the world use generative artificial intelligence in public sector services indicate that we will witness vast developments in the future in how to conduct government transactions that usually take a lot of time and effort from employees and citizens, and these services will also become easily available to people with special needs in various countries around the world as all governments adopt automation programs, accessibility features and virtual assistants on government services websites.