The city of Elgin is moving forward with plans to expand its use of AI through programs that will offer more collaboration between departments and strengthen cybersecurity.
Acting on the recommendation of Chief Technology Officer Aaron Cosentino, the Elgin City Council approved a three-year, $1.2 million contract with Box Inc. Wednesday night that will build upon its current deal, which was limited to cloud storage for city documents and programs that allow employees to create notes, diagrams, centralized landing pages and electronic signatures.
Cosentino suggested adding more AI, or artificial intelligence, components before signing a new contract with the California-based company. The Elgin Police Department currently uses AI technology for police reports.
“AI means something different to everybody,” Cosentino told council members at a previous meeting where the contract was discussed. “Some really like it. Some really dislike it. And a lot of us are in between. But I think none of us can deny it is here. It is a force to be reckoned with.”
AI can have a large impact on the work city employees do and while there are potential downsides, “the city’s approach to AI tries to reap the benefits that AI can provide us while mitigating the risk some of us see with AI,” he said.
“(Box offers) a centralized, very controllable, secure AI that we can scale across the entire organization and make it available to all of our staff,” he said. “Everyone is going to be able to benefit from this.”
For example, it can help with routine staff duties, like evaluating bids for city contracts, Cosentino said. A process might take hours for employees to do now could be accomplished in minutes by directing an AI agent to look for specific information, he said.
Council members could use AI by getting questions answered, meeting documents analyzed and memos summarized as well as in guiding them in drafting questions for staff, Cosentino said. It would be the equivalent to having an assistant, he said.
Box has security perimeters in place to prohibit unauthorized people from viewing documents and ensuring documents remain in the city’s system, he said.
Additionally, Box’s AI draws from information in city documents and doesn’t rely on outside Internet sources, which can be inaccurate, Cosentino said.
“We control the information. We control the accuracy. We control who sees it,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is rely overly on AI … without any human in the loop. You want to have someone there from an accountability standpoint.”
That’s already in place with the police department’s use of AI, he said. Officers use it to create reports, but the department has a “very well written and thoughtful” policy that provides safeguards, he said.
The city will need to do the same, and will work with Box to develop a policy to be included in its strategic plan, Cosentino said.
He added that he knows there are concerns that AI will result in the elimination of jobs, but he said he believes it should be viewed as “a supplement and complement to our staff to be able to focus on larger quality control or other customer service issues.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
