New Technology That Can Improve the Veteran Benefits Administration Performance And Improve Efficiency
Introduction

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in public administration is a concept that is growing around the world. As Dhasarathy, Jain and Khan (2019) show, AI can help governments to solve complex public-sector issues in more effective and efficient ways. This paper will describe AI technology, the goals of its usage, challenges faced with its implementation, how it impacts the organizational culture, and the pros and cons of adopting AI methods in public administration.

Summary of the Technology

AI is a technology that essentially allows the machine to learn how to address new problems based on the information collected and analyzed by algorithms over time. AI can be used to help public administrators make decisions and improve their performance. Some examples of the ways in which AI can be used include sorting through infrastructure data to find information on specific issues, or sifting through health and social-service data to develop a program for addressing child welfare in the community (Dhasarathy et al., 2019). To make AI work, programmers must be skilled in writing algorithms and public administrators must know what they want the program to do once it is written.

Goals

The goals of using AI are to create a more equitable and fair community through effective decision making, and to achieve predictive equality via the application of “a set of nuanced debiasing practices used in the field of data science” (Dhasarathy et al., 2019, p. 4). Another goal is to achieve stability in decision making. The use of AI removes the risk of bias, instability, and uncertainty, and allows for all relevant information to be brought together so as to facilitate the decision-making process most effectively. Goals in practical terms can range from deciding which people will receive rehabilitation treatment to deciding where to focus tax audits or which students should receive scholarships and grants based on the probability that they will graduate and use the money effectively (Dhasarathy et al., 2019).

Challenges

The challenges of implementing AI in public administration pertain to the proper writing of algorithms, monitoring for stability, and implementing a program effectively for optimal results. Envisioning the...…the right programming team onboard before any the plan is implemented. AI and machine learning is not going to help a public administration office if the computer programmers employed do not know what they are doing.

Conclusion

AI is a new and emerging technology that can help public administrators sort and sift through the data and make predictions about which courses of action are likely to have the best results. AI depends upon programming tools and computer codes that can read, interpret and project information to facilitate the decision making process of public administrators. It can help administrators improve their own work and create a fairer and more equitable environment for all. However, it can also run into challenges from workers who feel slighted because so much value is being placed on a computer program instead of being vested in them. To overcome this obstacle, workers should be made to understand that AI and machine learning are tools to help them in the decision making process—not tools to replace them. At the end of the day, public administrators are still needed; computers just help.

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