AI in Local Government? MD Officials Urged to ‘Adopt’ It for Cybersecurity

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OCEAN CITY — Government advisers from both the public and private sectors are pushing local officials to start using artificial intelligence in cybersecurity.

“If you’re not using AI as part of your cybersecurity, then in my opinion you’re not really doing cybersecurity,” Stephen Pereira, director of technology services and chief information officer for Calvert County, said during a panel discussion Wednesday.

A session on the role of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity took place on the first day of this year’s Maryland Association of Counties summer conference.

Pereira said that unless artificial intelligence is implemented in cybersecurity systems, government officials will not have access to real-time information about ransomware attacks, nor will they be able to match the speed and level of information a hacker can work with, to name a few shortcomings.

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The panel members and state Sen. Mary Beth Carozza, who moderated, said officials should evaluate their current approaches to using AI in cybersecurity, identify where they may be falling short and learn from best practices in other local governments.

They also pressed officials to regularly reassess their approaches, given the exponentially increasing speed at which AI systems are evolving.

“We have a responsibility to our constituents to figure out, ‘How do we use AI in a way that best serves our constituents? At the same time, how do we balance that with those risks?’” Carozza, a Republican whose district includes Ocean City, said in an interview after the panel discussion.

The panel said that while AI can improve cybersecurity, it can also raise ethical and privacy concerns and may prove difficult for local governments to implement.

Carozza said public officials and their teams should ensure voters have confidence that their information and taxpayer-funded services are protected from dishonest actors.

One of the broader concerns about AI is whether it will lead to job losses, although panel members said there is no such risk.

“I don’t think it’s replacing people’s jobs,” said Rob O’Connor, chief information officer for the state comptroller’s office. “I think AI is going from a hammer to a nail gun. It’s just a technological advancement, and we need to learn how to embrace it and implement it, but in a controlled way.”

According to O’Connor, county governments should already have cybersecurity frameworks and policies in place to enable AI systems.

In the comptroller’s office, workers use artificial intelligence to detect fraud as they process millions of tax returns received in the months leading up to mid-April. The AI ​​system is especially needed to process — in just a few days — the large volume of returns that arrives close to Tax Day, O’Connor said.

People trying to defraud the state are also using AI models that are getting smarter, resulting in an ongoing battle between the comptroller’s office and the scammers. O’Connor said it underscores the importance of governments relying on AI for cybersecurity and constantly evaluating its systems.

“We need to be especially protective of this data model because it contains information on 3.1 million taxpayers,” he said.

The panel also briefly discussed more philosophical and existential concerns about AI. Their overall conclusion, however, was that the human race is safe for now.

“I don’t know if you think AI will really make us redundant and destroy the human race. I think it’s unlikely,” Pereira said, before adding jokingly: “I wouldn’t rule it out.”