The Delaware Artificial Intelligence Commission holds its first meeting to begin tackling the use of AI in the First State.
Last week, Gov. John Carney signed a bill creating the AI Commission, which will make AI safety and utilization recommendations to the General Assembly and the state's chief information officer.
The commission elected the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Krista Griffith (D-Fairfax), as its chair, and Sunita Chandrasekaran — an associate professor for computer and information science at the University of Delaware — will serve as vice chair.
While Griffith believes AI safety measures need to be taken, she also says there may be potential ways to use AI to boost efficiency within state government.
Delaware Department of Transportation's Mark Luszcz says they are already working on developing AI-enhanced software for the department's transportation management center.
“We've been working for the last several years on AI-enhanced software that can help make predictive traffic flow over the very near term, like five minutes to an hour, and help us make quicker decisions on how to adjust the signal timings than what our human operators can do," Luszcz said.
The commission plans to catalog these current AI efforts within state departments and ensure proper guardrails are in place to protect Delawareans’ sensitive information.
As the commission began setting guidelines for future meetings, JPMorgan Chase AI Program Manager Rich Jester recommended the body meet every other month to accommodate the fast-growing pace of the new technology.
“You could have a completely different version of ChatGPT or Llama between meetings, and that could ultimately impact accuracy, cost, all of that. So what we plan for in one quarter might actually be irrelevant by the next quarter," Jester said, who was also elected to be the committee's secretary.
But Griffith felt quarterly meetings would ultimately be more effective, noting special meetings could be called if such cases arose. She also said creating subcommittees would help disperse the workload.
The commission’s first set of recommendations is due to the legislature and Delaware Department of Technology and Information by the end of the year.
