Precision Public Administration

• In Event: Technology in Government: Analyzing Digital Transformation and Governance Challenges

Abstract

How can the public sector establish enhanced service provision using artificial intelligence (AI)? Although AI is beginning to permeate public sector activities, our understanding of how AI can be used to create unique public value is limited. To address this void, we introduce the concept of Precision Public Administration, a new wave of public sector change. We illuminate its importance for establishing AI-driven public service provision, enabling to deliver public services personalized, digital transformed, preventive and predictive, citizen centered, and evidence-based. We explain the conditions in which Precision Public Administration better enable the public sector to provide (hyper)personalized, preventive, evidence-based public policies with minimal disruption of public service users’ lives in terms of taxes and their time. We also highlight the potential challenges involved in Precision Public Administration, which can be both utilized by more and less democratic statehoods. Overall, we provide normative design theory for connecting public sector AI pursuits with enhanced state capacity and public service provision. We argue that precision public administration can create a self-sustaining, significant, strategic change to the public sector, with widespread technological, organizational, cultural, and social effects.

Authors

• Florian Keppeler, Aarhus University
  Presenting Author

• Mary Feeney, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author