Gov. Shapiro Touts AI as Timesaver for Pennsylvania Government Workers

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is hailing AI as a significant timesaver for the Commonwealth’s government employees.

At a recent gathering of university, labor and private sector leaders at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Gov. Shapiro shared the results of a yearlong pilot AI program designed to help improve Pennsylvania government workers’ efficiency.

As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Shapiro was on hand to announce that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was expanding its work with San Francisco-based AI research organization OpenAI, which has brought in 175 employees across 14 Pennsylvania state agencies to try out ChatGPT for a number of tasks.

At the March 21 Carnegie Mellon event, Shapiro noted that the pilot AI program found the use of AI saved employees an average of 95 minutes a day for tasks such as research, summarization, code optimizing and writing.

“Commonwealth employees overwhelmingly found generative AI useful in their work,” Gov. Shapiro said.

In a statement released the same day that Gov. Shapiro appeared at Carnegie Mellon University, his office noted that he has also signed a letter “making clear the Commonwealth will actively engage its employees in the future development of this technology.” This commitment reflects the governor’s view that generative AI is “a job enhancer, not a job replacer,” according to the statement.

At Carnegie Mellon, Gov. Shapiro urged other elected officials to engage with technologies like AI, or risk being left behind.

“There are too many public officials who think they can stick their head in the sand and ignore this, and try to ban emerging technologies,” said Gov. Shapiro, who signed a 2023 executive order aimed at establishing standards for AI use by Pennsylvania government agencies.

“I think we need to embrace it and use it for the betterment of society and the betterment of the people we serve.”