Praise Be to the Beautiful Bureaucrat

Observations from the first year of the GovAI Coalition

By Albert Gehami

Last year I made 1,500 new friends online and, despite my parents’ warnings, met 500 of them in person in San José. They were bureaucrats attending the inaugural GovAI Coalition Summit–government software engineers automatically detecting potholes in Chattanooga, government data scientists predicting flood risks in Virginia Beach, elected officials shaping responsible AI in San Francisco, and so much more.

My online government friends were not required by work to fly to the Summit in San José, the hub of AI and high hotel prices. Many had to pay for the trip with their own money. Moreover, before the summit, these 1,500 bureaucrats spent the last year volunteering thousands of hours with strangers online to ensure good public sector AI. Why?

There is magic in the bureaucrat

Government is a rare place where people are hired with the single, daunting goal of “making life better for everyone”. Their end-of-year evaluation is about how many residents they served, how many businesses were opened, how many kids improved at school.

2024 marked the first full year of the GovAI Coalition, the place for new interns and seasoned bureaucrats alike to direct the development of AI in government so it benefits the public good. I was lucky enough to be there from the start, and have been humbled at the lengths people with full-time jobs and families will go to help a movement that can make their cities, counties, states, and country better.

One member called me on their vacation in Stockholm because they were 1) recruiting Stockholm to the Coalition and 2) bringing Stockholm’s lessons back to the rest of our governments.

Another member created a 20-page “how-to” guide for making a “file-finding wizard” using a large language model nearly half a year before there was an easy solution we could buy.

A Midwest city’s IT team volunteered to be a personal tutor for the rest of the country in making an AI policy.

These are not one-off acts of a brave few, this is how bureaucrats operate.

Every year, the US Office of Personnel Management conducts the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) of over 600,000 federal employees. They are given around 100 statements to agree or disagree with. The most agreed-upon statement in 2024, at 92% of employees, is that “It is important to me that my work contribute to the common good.”

Yet even as they aspire to deliver more, too often they lack the resources, or frankly the confidence, to do so. One of the ten least agreed-upon statements, at only 57%, is that “My work unit commits resources to develop new ideas (e.g., budget, staff, time, expert support).”

Imagine what these teams could accomplish if they were properly funded and trusted to serve the common good.

Why Invest in Government?

There is a crisis in confidence in government structures, assuming that they can’t—or won’t—serve us. Looking at popular media which focuses on the 0.1% of scandalous, loud, and controversial people, I understand the sentiment. Let this serve as a little media on what the other 99.9% of public servants do. They voluntarily tackle problems on their own time because they believe in making communities safer, smarter, and more equitable.

• Culturally, we should trust that government employees come to work every day ready to serve.

• Financially, we should invest in them so they can carry out their missions without resorting to volunteer time or personal funds.

I’ve been lucky enough to see many success stories this year of governments finding new ways to serve their communities better, but each time took investment and trust. For every 1 success story I hear, there are 100 that are waiting for the support they need to start.

The people dedicating their careers to government work do so because they believe in the power of the common good. Let’s give them the freedom to innovate. Let’s trust them with the resources they need to serve—and work together so our communities thrive.

So how do we invest in government?

So glad you asked.

• If you’re a person in the USA, here are a few places you can get started (coming soon).

• If you’re in government, learn how to support your fellow bureaucrats (coming soon).

• If you’re getting ready to vote soon, learn how to support your government (coming soon).

For the skeptic: Should we really invest in government?

There’s a direct connection between a well-functioning society and a strong, well-resourced public sector. There is a lot of research on this topic (articles 1,2,3,4) and I’ll do a walkthrough of the value of investing in government (coming soon).

---

About the author

Albert Gehami is the Chief Privacy Officer for the City of San José, CA, part of the facilitation team of the GovAI Coalition, and founder of govaireview.com.

Note: The opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the GovAI Coalition or the authors’ affiliated professional organization(s).

—

This is the blog for the GovAI Coalition, a coalition of local, state, and federal agencies united in their mission to promote responsible and purposeful AI in the public sector.