GPO Director Testifies on Improving Agency Workflow and Productivity with Artificial Intelligence

WASHINGTON —The U.S. Government Publishing Office’s (GPO) Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern on January 24, 2024 testified before the United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) at the Agency. The Director outlined GPO’s vision for the role of AI at the Agency and described several ways the Agency already uses AI to improve productivity. The Director hopes to use AI to perform repetitive basic tasks, freeing up teammates to focus on more complex issues and making roles more enticing to young talent.

View the hearing: https://www.rules.senate.gov/hearings/the-use-of-artificialintelligence- at-the-library-of-congress-government-publishing-office-and-smithsonianinstitution

“GPO is looking to use AI as an opportunity to augment our team’s capabilities, improve their performance, and allow them to focus on more difficult problems,” said Director Halpern. “Through the selective application of these technologies, we can both relieve pressure on our existing team to perform repetitive basic tasks and at the same time make some of these roles more attractive to the next generation of teammates.”

Director Halpern noted the following potential applications of AI and large language models at GPO:

  • Acquisitions – Increase the accuracy of GPO procurements and free up contract specialists to focus on more complex issues
  • Employee Communications – Assist in writing headlines in routine communications with teammates
  • Cybersecurity – Recognize cyberattacks in real time
  • Process Automation – Allow GPO to get important information to decision makers in time for it to be actionable
  • Quality Assurance Image Analysis – Automatically reject pages for passports that do not meet GPO’s quality specifications; digital inkjet presses include error checking functions
  • Proofreaders – Correct common copyediting issues by understanding errors in context and learn as proofreaders correct copy, increasing proofreader productivity
  • Cataloging – Assist librarians in cataloging Government information materials
  • Screening for PII – Scan documents for PII such as social security numbers
  • Providing Alternative Views of Government Information – Display information in more accessible formats

GPO’s AI Governance Committee is currently under development as is an overall AI Strategy for the Agency, which will be complete in the next few months.

GPO is the Federal Government’s resource for publishing trusted information for the Federal Government to the American people. The GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications of Congress, the White House, and other Federal agencies in digital and print formats. GPO provides for permanent public access to Federal Government information at no charge through www.GovInfo.gov and partnerships with approximately 1,100 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit www.gpo.gov.

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