Aurora approves consultant for use of artificial intelligence at City Hall

After being assured there will be plenty of public input, Aurora aldermen this week approved hiring a Massachusetts-based company to help develop a plan and strategy for how generative artificial intelligence will be handled at the city.

Aldermen voted 11-1 to pay $136,570 to International Data Corporation Research, Inc. of Needham, Massachusetts, or IDC, as a consultant for a policy, strategy and roadmap for use of what is called GenAI.

The vote came after aldermen indicated they want plenty of input into the plan, as well as plenty of input from Aurora residents in general on the issue.

Since the contract was first publicized after a City Council Finance Committee meeting two weeks ago, aldermen have heard concerns from residents and people in the GenAI industry that there will not be enough public input into the city’s AI plans.

In particular, residents were concerned because when the city held an event on AI last June, city employees, people in the industry and officials from other cities were invited, but not the general public.

“Was there an open invitation to the public?” said Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward.

Michael Pegues, the city’s chief information technology officer, said the event was not open to the public, although aldermen were invited and some did attend. He called the event “a sort of discover” of the issues involved with the use of GenAI.

He told aldermen that the plan for what IDC is going to do includes “feedback from aldermen and residents.”

Ald. Ted Mesiacos, 3rd Ward, asked how public input “will work out.”

Pegues said it could be in the form of surveys, face-to-face meetings, the city’s website “or all of the above.”

Kevin Brimberry, of IDC, said the year-long work will be in three phases, and will start by engaging stakeholders, after which aldermen will help determine how the overall public will be heard.

“We want to make sure everybody is heard,” Bribery said.

He said his company will look at how a GenAI policy will align with the city’s existing technology, develop a GenAI strategy and outline a short-term roadmap of how the city can use it.

Pegues has said GenAI could work for the city in the form of helping with time-consuming tasks in certain offices,  with water billing and other improvements for the city’s customers.

He envisioned it helping with things like a chat box answering basic questions for residents, possibly helping fill out permits and streamlining data.

Pegues said GenAI is not designed to eliminate jobs or replace people, but free up employees to do other, greater tasks.

slord@tribpub.com