Progress in the Use of Traditional and Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government

Federal statistical agencies continually evolve their processes in their efforts to provide the highest quality official statistics. The list frame coverages and response rates are tending to decrease for surveys in the U.S. and other countries. Administrative, business, remotely sensed, weather, and other non-survey data are increasingly available. A major effort by federal statistical agencies focuses on the integration of survey and non-survey data to produce improved official statistics. Traditional Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods, including machine learning, deep learning, computer-aided vision, and natural language processing, have become important tools in this effort, which focuses on automation. When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, excitement for the potential of generative AI in numerous applications exploded. Transformers (GPTs), such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, train on massive amounts of data. With a focus on amalgamation, the GPTs can be used to generate content, create new data, and identify new capabilities. As federal statistical agencies identify possibilities for using generative AI to further advance the production of official statistics, the concern for ensuring the safety of the data underpinning those statistics has come to the forefront. The question of how to ensure the safety of data while taking advantage of the new technology has slowed adoption of GPTs within government. This session will focus on the integration of traditional AI methods to improve processes in the Federal Statistical System (FSS) and the progress that is being made in adopting generative AI. Representatives from four government agencies and a consulting company working closely with federal statistical agencies will provide an overview of the present and a look into the future of AI within the FSS.