“We are not looking at this with fear, or with this idea that we have to stop and shut down AI,” said Pechacek, secretary of the state’s Department of Workforce Development. “It’s here. It’s being used everywhere. It’s being used by our children. It’s already being used in agriculture and manufacturing. We’re looking at embracing those uses and making sure that we can be strategic, ethical and equitable when we put these policy recommendations in place so that we can have a Wisconsin economy that works for everyone and continues to thrive.”
The group, formed through executive order by Gov. Tony Evers, has a mission to gather and analyze information to deliver an advisory action plan to the governor that will recommend solutions and policy related to the use of AI in workforce development and educational systems.
Pechacek was involved in pioneering the use of AI in Wisconsin government to resolve a backlog of unemployment insurance claims during the pandemic. The system the backlog existed on was what she described as “1970s technology,” causing serious bottlenecks. She reached out to partner with Google to build an AI-based adjudicator that was able to clear the backlog of more than 700,000 claims by ingesting previous claims data and adjudicating new claims without making any mistakes.
“AI taught itself all of the eligibility rules in the state of Wisconsin by ingesting four million previously fully adjudicated claims that had been adjudicated by humans, and it made no mistakes,” she said. “It cleared the backlog for us in a really good example of how technology partnered with a public program can really work to benefit and service the people.”
Pechacek added that no employees were displaced when AI was brought in to help; instead, the team pivoted to a comprehensive modernization strategy to improve customer service with AI and multilanguage translation.
In a meeting Dec. 4, the task force discussed the private- and public-sector occupations that will be impacted more significantly by AI. The occupations were identified as many higher earning positions in the fields of engineering, data analysis, finance, legal and creativity.
“It’s really just making sure that the folks in these industries are preparing for the augmentation for some of these disruptions, knowing that there’s still a seat at the table for everybody who wants to work and still be a part of the labor force,” she said.
The task force is also exploring educational solutions and brainstorming policy recommendations to prevent a disproportionate impact on any community, as well as funding recommendations for where the governor should create incentives like tax credits to encourage specific industries to start transforming how they work.
“We have 30 economists that work at the Department of Workforce Development, and we’re bringing them in along with lots of industry experts and representatives from Google, Microsoft, Gartner, Deloitte,” said Pechacek. “We’re taking that information and mirroring it with our major industries and looking at what educational opportunities we have, as early as the K-12 sector.”
The Task Force on Workforce and Artificial Intelligence will reconvene Jan. 22, 2024.
