Re: Civic Technology Community Group

Hi Adam,

may i note, that there is an important distinction between the concept of
civics, and civic.  Civic, is akin to government infrastructure, often
in-turn also associated with government employees who actions may help or
harm citizens, lawfully or indeed also, unlawfully.

civics, is people doing good for the community, who are not otherwise
employed by government; to do work, to improve circumstances.  including
but not limited to, seeking to ensure citizens are not harmed by acts of
malfeasance and wrong-doing by those employed by government, something that
government often suggests is a matter of fiction, and could not possibly
exist at all in any circumstance.

As the founder of Web Civics in 2014, I wish you well with it.  I am sure
that there will likely be an overlap also with:
https://www.w3.org/community/humancentricai/   whilst also, surely, some
difference.

So much work to do, i look forward to making progress, as required, to
radically improve the lives of billions of people.

Best of luck,

Timothy Holborn.

On Sat, 8 Apr 2023 at 04:49, Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Pierre-Antoine,
>
> Both the *Open Government Community Group* and the *e-Governance
> Community Groups* recently closed due to inactivity. In my opinion, the
> new group overlaps with both of those previous initiatives. I wouldn't
> object to either of those previous groups reactivating at any point. I hope
> that the new group will add value and I invite civics-minded technologists
> to join!
>
> Those interested can join the new group here:
> https://www.w3.org/community/civics/ .
>
>
> Best regards,
> Adam
>
> P.S.: I am recently exploring XBRL (https://xbrl.us/) and coordination
> with the *XBRL **Standard Government Reporting Working Group* (
> https://xbrl.us/xbrl-reference/sgr-working-group/).
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Pierre-Antoine Champin
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 5, 2023 8:40 AM
> *To:* Adam Sobieski; semantic-web@w3.org; public-aikr@w3.org; Public-cogai
> *Subject:* Re: Civic Technology Community Group
>
> Dear Adam,
>
>
> there was in the past an "eGovernance" Community Group [1], which was very
> recently closed due to a lack of activity. It seems to me that there is a
> large overlap between your proposal and that pre-existing group. Would it
> make sense to reactivate the old CG instead?
>
>
> [1] https://www.w3.org/community/egovernance/
>
>
> On 05/04/2023 03:28, Adam Sobieski wrote:
>
> INTRODUCTION
>
> A new W3C *Civic Technology Community Group* is proposed. I would like to
> invite you to support its creation and then to join! You may click to
> support its creation here: https://www.w3.org/community/ . Please feel
> free to help spread the word!
>
> Artificial intelligence is already having a big impact across domains,
> including government services. Users will soon be able to ask
> natural-language questions and engage in multimodal dialogues about
> large-scale public-sector financial, accounting, and budgetary data while
> receiving responses comprised of language, mathematics, charts, diagrams,
> figures, and graphs.
>
> This Community Group will bring together those interested in civic
> technology, open government, and artificial intelligence to share and
> discuss how to ensure that the Web is well-suited for these and related
> applications.
>
> This new group may discuss topics including, but not limited to:
>
>    1. how existing and new standards could benefit civic technology and
>    open government,
>    2. software interoperability scenarios involving Web browsers,
>    3. how chatbots in webpages, in Web browsers (browser sidebar
>    chatbots), and in desktop and Web-based office software (e.g., Copilot) may
>    interoperate with one another,
>    4. how recent developments in AI can enhance public-sector websites,
>    5. multimodal dialogue systems or chatbots which can provide, beyond
>    natural-language responses, charts, diagrams, figures, graphs, and so forth,
>
>    6. multimodal dialogue systems or chatbots which can answer questions
>    which involve processing data from multiple governments, federal, state,
>    county, and city governments,
>    7. how users can embed data from dialogue systems or chatbots into
>    documents and websites,
>    8. how users can share responses with one another on social media,
>    9. differences between static and dynamic, updating, refreshable
>    AI-generated content,
>    10. other technical requirements from the domain of civic technology.
>
> Interested participants are invited to enter an election process to serve
> as group Chairs.
> CIVIC TECHNOLOGY AND OPEN GOVERNMENT
>
> According to Wikipedia, “civic technology enhances the relationship
> between the people and government with software for communications,
> decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes
> information and communications technology supporting government with
> software built by community-led teams of volunteers, nonprofits,
> consultants, and private companies as well as embedded tech teams working
> within government.”
>
> “Open government is the governing doctrine which maintains that citizens
> have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to
> allow for effective public oversight.”
> ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
>
> Recent advancements to artificial intelligence technology, e.g., large
> language models and GPT, can equip: (1) accountants, auditors, analysts,
> comptrollers, public officials, legislators, oversight committees, and
> members of their staffs, and (2) the public, journalists, and government
> watchdog organizations, to better make sense of and interact with
> large-scale public-sector financial, accounting, and budgetary data.
>
> Users will soon be able to ask natural-language questions and to engage in
> multimodal dialogues about large-scale public-sector financial, accounting,
> and budgetary data while receiving responses which include language,
> mathematics, charts, diagrams, figures, and graphs. Users will soon be able
> to copy AI-generated content into document authoring software and share
> such content with one another using social media.
> AWARD-WINNING GOVERNMENT WEBSITES
>
> Award-winning government websites include those of Mississippi (
> https://www.ms.gov), which provides a chatbot, and Utah (
> https://www.utah.gov/), which provides live chat support.
> GOVERNMENT WEBSITE MODERNIZATION
>
> There are opportunities to assist in the modernization of federal
> government websites such as data.gov, performance.gov, and usaspending.gov
> .
>
> A 2021 GAO study (https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104127) determined
> that “the Secretary of the Treasury should add a broad website search
> function to USAspending.gov to help users find content on the website.” The
> study indicated that Treasury officials responded to the GAO that they were
> “in the process of laying the foundation for a broad (‘global’) search
> function across all USAspending.gov content. However, they expect the
> design work for a global search function will not begin until FY2024 at the
> earliest.”
>
> Such a broad search function would be greatly enhanced by modern
> artificial intelligence technologies.
>
>