Nebraska’s public employees are in the midst of negotiations with the state, and one of the focuses is using artificial intelligence in offices.
Justin Hubly, executive director of the Nebraska Association of Public Employees (NAPE), said the goal is good governance over AI.
“Our proposal is really focused on a few things: one is making sure that there is human oversight of AI [and that] artificial intelligence is not making decisions,” Hubly said.
This is NAPE’s initial stance as it negotiates with the state. They are held every other year to determine wage increases and benefits. Hubly did not comment on ongoing negotiations since conversations began.
But Hubly’s organization recently got involved in an AI dispute in Richardson County where an AI-integrated camera and GPS tracking system disciplined an employee when a motor grater wasn’t moved for two days. The grader was under maintenance for those two days and could not be moved.
“We’re not letting AI just do things if it’s not up to snuff or if it’s unable to do what we need it to do,” Hubly said. “We have to hold it accountable and we have to make sure humans are doing the work.”
NAPE surveyed public employees over the summer, and Hubly estimated that around 1,500 employees participated. Of that sample, only a few workers reported AI pilot programs in their sectors, and even fewer said AI is already in place.
For example, the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles implemented an AI chatbot this September that guides users around its website. When Gov. Jim Pillen announced the chatbot, he touted its ability to help Nebraskans seeking DMV assistance while the offices are closed.
“That’s not really what we’re concerned about,” Hubly said of the chatbot.
But Hubly added that many employees were very concerned that AI would replace their jobs.
“I don’t think our members are saying, ‘We absolutely have to oppose the use of artificial intelligence,’” Hubly said. “My calculus teacher in high school said, ‘You’ll never have a calculator in your pocket all day, so you’re going to need to learn how to do this.’ Well, spoiler alert, he was wrong. I do have a calculator in my pocket all day. We just want to make sure that, where AI is used, [there’s] human accountability and human oversight of it at all times.”
The bread and butter of how AI will impact the lives and work of public employees is still under negotiation, and Hubly estimated that he would know more on how things will hash out near the end of November; although, negotiations could continue through Dec. 31.
A handful of state agencies and constitutional offices, including the Attorney General’s office and the State Treasurer’s office, said they were going to experiment with using more AI tools to streamline work and reduce costs. In its budget request submitted to the State Budget Division in September, the Attorney General’s office proposed developing and evaluating an internal AI pilot program. The office said it could reduce the amount of spending on third-party hosting and review software services.
In its September budget request, the Department of Insurance said it was using AI “sparingly,” but “the benefits of such use have been made apparent, and the Department will explore broadening its use going forward.”
The State Treasurer’s office said one of its top priorities will be implementing an AI chat tool for customer service. It’s called Centurion CaresCHAT. In its budget request, the office said the chat tool will allow for a “visual interactive voice response platform” that uses AI through a call center, “thereby reducing the need for live customer service representatives, freeing them up to perform outbound customer service.”
Department of Administrative Services Director Lee Will, who is also currently the interim chief information officer for Nebraska, said the state is still exploring what type of AI systems could be implemented and where in state government AI might be used.
Once state staff have worked out what jobs AI can perform well, he said they will have discussions about which processes might be slimmed down and how that might impact existing state employees.
Will emphasized that human oversight over work done by AI at the state level will be a major and important factor.
“You’re going to have to have somebody guiding it, making sure that gets implemented effectively,” Will said. “There will always have to be that human touch.”
Much of Will’s job involves working with the state budget, and he shared that he has spent many late nights on busy work – turning PDFs into Excel sheets of all expenditures for each individual state agency. He said human resources and finance departments often have similar tasks that eat up quite a bit of time. But AI can speed up those processes.
As the state searches for the right places to use AI, Will said staff are also searching for the right software. Whatever AI program the state uses should be designed for government use, he said, and not taking state data and offering it for other public users of the same program to find elsewhere.