When a government staff member uploads a document into ChatGPT, NotebookLM, or the latest AI tool their IT department has cautiously approved, something remarkable appears to happen. You upload a file. You ask a question. You get an answer. It…
This is the final article in a series on AI Sovereignty and the Knowledge Layer. The earlier pieces explored the risk of cognitive lock-in and sketched an architecture for a sovereign stack. What remains is the least theoretical question of…
Note: this is part of an ongoing series about a little understood but critical issue for local governments in the intelligence era: owning the institutional mind. Local government administrators are connoisseurs of professional pain. They live with the fifteen-year-old permitting…
Building Toward Governable AI, One Drawer at a Time Local governments do not suffer from a shortage of AI tools. Vendors arrive weekly, armed with slick demos, confident timelines, and the reassuring promise that this time, truly, the transformation will…
Artificial intelligence is entering local government the way most consequential things do: politely, without knocking, and claiming it will save everyone a little time. It appears as a chatbot on the city website. A tool that summarizes ordinances. A quiet…
Note: This is the third article in this series. For more context, it might help to read the first two (When GIS Wasn’t Really GIS and When AI Went to Work). The Pragmatic Truth: AI Won’t Take Your Job, But…
Why the Plumbing Matters More Than the Chatbot: The Diagnosis Introduction: The Efficiency Gap Local governments across the country are hitting a familiar wall. The excitement around Artificial Intelligence rises like steam from a freshly opened manhole cover, yet the…
Author’s Note: Some of this is specific to Michigan local government, but it likely applies in your neck of the woods as well. Most of us have watched this scene unfold with the same resigned familiarity we reserve for potholes…
When Van Buren County was established in 1829, it was named for then Vice President Martin Van Buren. Nearly two centuries later, that name lives on, on our maps, our signs, and now, in a new way, in Marty, the county’s…
Across Michigan, a quiet shift is underway. County clerks are testing chatbots. Assessors are exploring automation. Planners are wondering if artificial intelligence can finally make sense of zoning codes written before color TV. The Digital Innovation Collaborative Exchange (DICE), in…
