Bonner County commissioners seek department use inventory, legal review before countywide AI policy

Bonner County commissioners directed staff on Oct. 12 to survey elected officials and department heads about current and planned uses of generative artificial intelligence, and to begin rolling out employee training while the county obtains a legal opinion on recordkeeping and disclosure.

The action came after a lengthy discussion about employee use of ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI tools, unresolved public-records questions and possible costs and privacy trade-offs. "If we're going to be transparent with the public ... maybe I provide that and say, this is how we're using it," one participant said, urging the county to be able to show logs of AI use if questions arise.

Commissioner John Williams (first reference: 0:24) framed the issue as one of scope and risk, saying departments already use AI for tasks from drafting to summarizing documents but that the county currently lacks a way to log or audit those inputs. Director of Technology Storms (first reference: 2:39) described technical options: assigning centrally managed…