Welcome to The Newsfeed.

What happens when random citizens are put in charge of writing their government's AI policy?

Snohomish County tried that this spring.

Cascade PBS and KNKX reporter Nate Sanford takes us inside the process, where a group was tasked with researching AI issues and providing recommendations for how the county should use it.

How many companies are going to be okay with having a penalty that's greater than that overage?

They're going to be more motivated to not want to go over on their power consumption.

The participants looked at many angles of AI, from bias and accuracy to the environmental impacts of data centers.

Snohomish County already uses some AI tools.

As the technology becomes more common and the county enters into more contracts.

The participants agreed that more transparency and regular audits are needed.

They also decided that people should have the right to know if they're talking to AI when they contact their county government.

Nobody wants to sit there and try and explain what their problem is, just to be told that that you're talking with an AI.

One big question was whether the county should be allowed to replace existing employees with AI.

There is some disagreement on that.

There is a really big discussion.

The reality is, is that we can't feasibly justify making employers retain every single employee that they have, while also paying for this new, you know, artificial intelligence system.

AI is evolving quickly, so the participants said the county should create an AI advisory board to weigh in on future issues.

We want to have that kind of a democratic way of doing things.

Yeah.

Next time, we'll let you know where the Civic Assembly's policy recommendations go from here.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thanks for watching The Newsfeed.