The analysis of public affairs documents is crucial for citizens as it promotes transparency, accountability, and informed decision-making. It allows citizens to understand government policies, participate in public discourse, and hold representatives accountable. This is crucial, and sometimes a matter of life or death, for companies whose operation depend on certain regulations. Large Language Models (LLMs) have the potential to greatly enhance the analysis of public affairs documents by effectively processing and understanding the complex language used in such documents. In this work, we analyze the performance of LLMs in classifying public affairs documents. As a natural multi-label task, the classification of these documents presents important challenges. In this work, we use a regex-powered tool to collect a database of public affairs documents with more than 33K samples and 22.5M tokens. Our experiments assess the performance of 4 different Spanish LLMs to classify up to 30 different topics in the data in different configurations. The results shows that LLMs can be of great use to process domain-specific documents, such as those in the domain of public affairs.

We often hear of the dark side of artificial intelligence (AI), how it will plunge us into a dystopian world of lost privacy and bad automated decisions, culminating in the robots killing us all. Professor Orly Lobel's The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future (Public Affairs, October 2022) offers a very different view – one of optimism. Orly's book is an exuberant and insightful account of the bright side of AI and related digital technologies. Her book is filled with fascinating facts and engaging stories. Orly Lobel is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law; University Professor; and Director, Center for Employment and Labor Policy at the U.C. San Diego School of Law.

Google's chief Canadian spokesman is leaving to become a partner with Radical Ventures, a Toronto venture-capital firm that has emerged as a leading backer of domestic artificial intelligence startups. Aaron Brindle, who has led public affairs for Google Canada for more than eight years – a period that has seen the Silicon Valley search giant establish its leadership in the global AI field in part by hiring renowned University of Toronto scientist Geoffrey Hinton – will join Radical at the end of February. He will oversee public affairs for the firm and help companies in its portfolio craft their communications. "I'm very familiar with the AI space and recognize there's fear and a lot of hype around the technology," Mr. Brindle said in an interview. "My job is to help nurture and support the AI narrative in the country. There's a capacity to effect real change around how we talk about this technology," not just around privacy and ethical concerns, but around its commercial potential.

Around 35 Members of World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid (WLA-CdM), all democratic former Heads of State and Government, will join representatives from governments, civil society, academia and tech companies in a discussion to define policy solutions that address the challenges of digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) in our societies. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of WLA-CdM and former President of Latvia, warns of the big governance challenges that the technological transformation brings along, while also acknowledging its great opportunities. With this in mind, WLA-CdM has partnered with the IE School of Global & Public Affairs in the organization of its 2019 Policy Dialogue titled'Digital Transformation and the Future of Democracy: How can Artificial Intelligence Drive Democratic Governance?' "The rise of AI will change our societies in ways researchers are only beginning to examine, and democratic governments simply cannot afford to lag behind. We must govern the technological game before it governs us, not through censorship or trying to stop innovation, but by acquiring competencies and a better understanding of how AI could work for us", says President Vike-Freiberga. AI is set to bring about a radical transformation that will disrupt economic and social trends, raise new ethical dilemmas and change the existing balance of power between states. At a time of growing inequality and wide-spread mistrust of institutions, democracies will need to work out AI's rollout in our societies without giving up on their foundational values.

On May 22, Congress held a hearing on facial recognition technology. Here are 4 things everyone needs to know about facial recognition tech. On May 22, the House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing on facial recognition technology. The Congressional hearing examines the use of facial recognition technology by the federal government, businesses, social media platforms and law enforcement. Specifically, lawmakers address privacy and civil rights concerns.

Consumers lack a full understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and are looking to businesses, government and academia for education, according to a FleishmanHillard report released today. The report highlights that 61% of all those surveyed believe the responsibility for educating the public about AI should be shared. The Future., surveyed consumers across the United States and the United Kingdom about their current sentiment on AI. It also asked a panel of 25 global experts in the AI field to provide their perspectives on the key areas where AI is impacting our world. The result is a snapshot of the public's attitudes on AI that analyzes common fears and opportunities, providing organizations with insights into how their audiences want them to engage going forward.

Last week's White House summit on artificial intelligence (AI) is an encouraging sign of American government and industry working collaboratively to advance this transformative technology. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recently told a congressional committee that the Department of Defense (DoD) is "not going to have more papers, we're going to move on [AI]." DoD is broadly pursuing AI, not just as another set of programs, but also as a powerful enabler for nearly every defense mission and function. Strategic competitors are not standing idly by, either, as they reshape their economies to more service-based industries bolstered by technology. The U.S. commercial sector has a sense of urgency in adopting AI in the face of increasing international competition.