RENO, Nev. — The Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities hosted its annual fundraiser Thursday evening, with the theme being the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and public policy.

AI has made its way into just about every industry at this point, and public policy is no exception, according to Deputy Director for the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Russell Wald.

"This is a general-purpose technology that will affect education to policymaking itself to actual governance and the ability for governments to work more effectively for its people by providing better resources at a faster pace, in a tight, timely manner," Wald said.

Wald also said that AI can be used as a tool to speed up certain processes in lawmaking that typically take years to complete.

"It can take up to three years to adjudicate a claim with the Veterans Administration, and a big part of this is just massive amounts of claims that need to be reviewed and filed. So imagine if you could truncate that time down from three years to three months," Wald said.

Of course, there are also concerns associated with AI, especially surrounding individuals manipulating the tool to advance certain political agendas.

Just this week, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) ruled that recent robocalls impersonating President Joe Biden are illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which restricts junk calls that use artificial voice messages.

"I know that states are already taking a look at ways to require disclosures if generative AI is used in campaign literation, and even imposing penalties if deepfakes are used in campaigning. I think that that's something that a lot of Nevadans are going to be interested in," Executive Director for the Guinn Center Jill Tolles said.

But according to Wald, with the proper safeguards in place, AI in public policy can be a very valuable and successful tool.

More information on the Guinn Center and the research being done there can be found on its website.