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Paducah officials outline uses, safeguards as city tests artificial‑intelligence tools
Summary
City staff presented an update on artificial intelligence uses and governance, describing current AI in city systems (OCR, email security, license‑plate reading), municipal use cases, and a draft policy emphasizing human review, disclosure and a phased 'crawl, walk, run' rollout.
City staff on Wednesday gave Paducah City Commission an update on how artificial intelligence is being used across city operations and what guardrails the city plans to put in place.
The presentation—delivered as an overview of AI types and municipal use cases—explained that the city already uses optical character recognition in its document management (Laserfiche) and in Tyler Technology systems, machine‑learning tools for endpoint security and email threat detection, and license‑plate OCR on Flock cameras in police operations. Staff said those tools help with meeting minutes, FOIA redaction, plan review triage, fraud detection, and 24/7 citizen inquiries via chat or voice agents.
The city manager framed the approach as “crawl, walk, run,” urging small, purpose‑driven pilots rather than broad, immediate rollouts. The presenter said the city is drafting an AI policy that would require “human in the loop” review of AI outputs, disclosure when AI is used to produce information, and governance structures such as an internal AI working group to assess department use cases.
Commissioners asked for practical first steps. Staff recommended a website or phone agent that can route routine questions and free up staff time, and a pilot for automated meeting notes that staff could standardize. Commissioners also emphasized that AI should not replace the “human touch” for residents who want to speak with a person.
Bonnie Kobitz, a public commenter earlier in the meeting, urged the commission to oppose data center projects and raised broad concerns about AI safety, water and air impacts, and power demands. Mayor George P. Bray clarified the presentation was about municipal AI uses—not a proposal for a data center—while acknowledging the public’s concerns.
Next steps the staff outlined include finalizing the draft AI policy for review, establishing an internal working group to prioritize use cases, and piloting citizen‑facing tools such as a website search/chat agent and meeting‑notes automation.
The commission did not take formal action on the policy at the meeting; staff said they would return with a draft for review.
