Fwd: Civic Technology Community Group

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 4, 2023, 19:35
Subject: Civic Technology Community Group
To: semantic-web@w3.org <semantic-web@w3.org>, public-aikr@w3.org <
public-aikr@w3.org>, Public-cogai <public-cogai@w3.org>


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.