♪♪
-Thank you all for joining us at the amazing AI House
and to hear the work that we're doing at the city on AI.
We're especially excited to talk about the Hackathon,
and you're gonna hear from some amazing speakers today.
It's gonna be a really good day.
To begin, though, I want to start
on September 11th with a moment of remembrance.
If you will join me in a moment of silence
for the almost 3,000 souls we lost in New York on that day
and what it reminded us as a nation.
Thank you.
My name is Rob Lloyd, and I have the honor of serving
as the Chief Technology Officer
for the city of Seattle and for you.
And we're gonna begin with some thanks
for our gracious hosts here at the AI House.
And this facility and all of the things that you do here
is a remarkable reminder of how we are partners,
and it's one of the reasons
why Seattle stands out as a tech leader.
Today you're gonna hear from some wonderful Seattle leaders,
including our great mayor,
representatives from the kinds of partnerships
that make our leadership stand out as Seattle.
That includes Ai2 incubator.
It includes our friends from the University of Washington.
And you'll also hear from the City of Seattle leaders.
And to kick off the event --
and we're gonna set the tone for the Hackathon --
we're gonna welcome Seattle's greatest advocate and my boss,
Mayor Bruce Harrell.
-Thank you, Rob.
[ Applause ]
Thank you very much.
So, we thought we'd kick it off with a little music here.
So, I don't know if many of you know.
I don't talk a lot about I'm a musician,
so we're gonna bring this... [ Laughter ]
Will I get in trouble if I actually touch that?
That's pretty impressive there.
-[Speaking indistinctly] companies...
-Okay. Very good. I will not touch it.
I do not know how to play the guitar.
So, pretty excited to share a little time and space
with you this afternoon, this morning,
in terms of what we're trying to do with the city,
but probably more importantly, how we can help you
pursue your dreams and aspirations in this space.
You know, I grew up as a technology lawyer
coming out of law school,
and I happened to be very fortunate to work in a space
when they broke up the Bell System.
And you may recall that, in 1984,
the civil enforcement consent order
was the law that broke up the entire AT&T Bell System.
At one point, there was just a thick monopoly,
those that owned the landline facilities,
the long-distance facilities.
And what happened, according to Microwave Incorporated,
who were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit
that broke up the Bell System was that the Bell Labs
had suppressed the technology, the wireless technology
that allowed the cell signal.
They had been working in this space for decades.
And they suppressed it. Why?
Because they had a monopoly.
And so when that had become wide open,
I had the great fortune of being
a telecom technology lawyer in that space
and negotiated many deals opening up --
it was like the wild wild West in what you could do.
That's what we're into right now with AI.
It is wide open, and we are competitive here in Seattle.
We want to be the best of the best.
We know that we will use it for good.
We recognize there needs to be
safety and security protocols in place.
But here we are innovative and we are tech-savvy.
And so I look forward to seeing what all you can do.
We are trying to be very intentional
about positioning Seattle as a national leader
in responsible artificial intelligence implementation.
Make no mistake about that.
We believe it'll position us
to be not only a strong city in terms of our values,
but as a port city, as a maritime city,
as a biotech leader, as a high-tech leader,
it really fits into our fabric as a city.
We're prioritizing the concept
of a human-in-the-loop approach to empower employees.
So, we're not trying to replace employees,
but we're certainly trying to make sure
that we're committed to labor partners
to ensure this transition is managed
with care and collaboration.
When one door is closed in terms of a repetitive function,
many more doors open for employment opportunities.
So we are very intentional in that regard.
Rob Lloyd introduced himself,
but one part of his department is we are creating
a position called the AI Leadership position
to join our Seattle IT team
to coordinate efforts across the city
because we recognize we have to have structure in place
to make sure your needs are met.
So, after 40 initial pilots,
we're now focusing our AI work on top priorities of permitting,
public safety, customer service, and accessible information.
Let me just talk a little bit about that.
And if you're thinking, "Maybe there's an opportunity
to monetize these things the city's working on,"
that's fair game, by the way.
Faster permits --
we know that AI can play an incredible role there.
So we have a permit and customer team partnering with CivCheck
to reduce permit processing times by up to 50%
through error prevention.
And we know that, particularly in building and housing --
housing is such a critical issue in our city --
that clearly time is money.
And to the extent we can reduce permit processing times,
this would be an added benefit
for everyone involved in that process.
Number two, safer streets.
Transportation Department uses AI
to identify high-risk intersections
as part of our Vision Zero commitment,
which is our safety plan,
and to partner with metro and bus reliability improvements.
Again, AI has made some remarkable headway
in looking at the choke points of the city,
the vulnerable areas, and how we can create
safer streets will be of incredible importance to us.
Better infrastructure.
Public utilities uses AI to inspect pipes
for early problem detection
and streamlined employee services.
So, as we speak, we have physical infrastructure
not only in Seattle, but in our dam facilities
and our hydro facilities all over the state.
And so this becomes critical work
in terms of our infrastructure, capital projects work.
Clearer communication.
This is where we use AI
for accessible materials and accurate translations,
supporting inclusive information access.
Particularly in times of
what we're seeing coming out of the Trump administration
relative to due-process violations
and our attack on our immigrant and refugee communities,
we realize that we have to be nimble, smart, accessible,
and be prepared to deal with some of the nonsense
we're seeing coming out of that office.
You know, we're home to nearly 25%
of the nation's AI engineers.
We are very proud of that.
That's second only to San Francisco
for AI concentration.
And so when we look at the companies around here,
our strategic public/private partnerships
through organizations like this, AI House,
and the Seattle Climate Incubation Hub,
they support supporting startups for incubation to launch.
We want to support you.
We want to make sure we have the infrastructure,
the leadership, the skill set
to make sure we are advancing what you're trying to do.
We will leverage our world-class institutions
like the University of Washington, and a few of you,
I know we have some Huskies here in the room
and a robust technological ecosystem of entrepreneurs here.
So, in short, that the Hackathon is always sort of fun.
I can think of no better place
to announce what we're trying to do
or when I'm describing, our AI plan
other than here -- AI House.
I think a first of a kind,
kind of collaborative and spirited organization
to create this partnership between
the all of you as entrepreneurs and developers.
We want to bring together our young students.
We realize that's our bench strength right now.
The entrepreneurs, the technologists, our city staff,
community members to solve,
again, the top priorities that you see as residents here
and employees here.
So in the next few weeks of October,
we'll hold a permitting process Hackathon.
I think I have to take the winner out to lunch.
No, they didn't say that. That's not in my notes,
but I'd be more than happy to do that.
But let's lead the way here.
Again, I open by saying we are very competitive here.
We should be.
That's why Seattle is on the map.
The country looks at what we do.
So let's use our competitive spirit to do good work in AI.
Let's lead the way,
and I look forward to continued partnership with all of you
and look forward to seeing the results of the Hackathon.
So thanks for being here. Thanks for participating.
I look to be a -- look to a strong partnership
with each and every -- each and every one of you,
and particularly the AI House.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
-If I can share a little.
I remember when I interviewed for the job, and the mayor
and I had a conversation and he actually shared with me.
He was born and grew up blocks from City Hall.
And we talked about why would you come to Seattle?
And he was like, uh, and I -- and I asked him.
Things take time and investment,
and he's like, "I'm all in on Seattle
and I want good things for Seattle.
And that's the kind of thing
that you heard that drew me here.
So one of the things about AI is,
you know, there's so much talk
that it sometimes can seem performative.
And what you've heard from Mayor Harrell
and his collaboration with the City Council
and our community partners is the challenge
that they've given us to be creating impact,
that it has to be real.
And one of the things that we've said as part of that
is what we've created in our AI policy
and our AI plan is something that creates action and impact,
and it can't just be motion.
There can't just be light and no heat.
And in the policy that we've announced and in the plan
that you have access to,
that is the direction that we've created.
It is very much about people.
And in that you see the controls
that we've put in for our AI policy,
and our plan is to say
that it has to go through responsible use.
There is a security process,
there is a privacy consideration.
And as we go through that,
we are also saying that we will enable AI
to make the city of Seattle able to solve civic challenges.
And as we do that, we activate the community.
We say our partners are really important to us.
And in that also, people matter in making
the most important decisions.
It doesn't displace people.
As we say, the training has to happen.
Policies do change, and the critical decisions
ultimately come back to the humans.
And you heard the mayor refer to that.
And that human in the loop ethic is there.
There are prohibited uses in that policy.
If you read it, there are high risk uses.
And we go through a process to make sure
that it demands that people make those most critical decisions,
that we do the right thing, that we correct
where we need to correct, and that we challenge
ourselves to measure the impact in terms of community
because we all want that safer city.
We all want that cleaner city.
We want the opportunities for our community long term.
So with that, let me also say that our
AI policy plan and partnerships
work together because Seattle's success with AI
will be a function of all of us
and what you see in our relationships and the speakers
you're about to hear from is that is a function
of our employees and people.
It's our companies and startups.
It's our universities, it's our nonprofits.
It's amazing young people, like the Hackathon
you're going to see a little later.
So let me start with our first speaker,
and that's Leah Tivoli.
Leah Tivoli is our director of innovation and performance
for the city of Seattle,
where she leads a team specializing in
data science evaluation,
project management and human centered design.
So Leah has been solving problems
for the city for 17 years.
She has two master's degrees because one wasn't enough,
and they are in environmental health
and public administration.
But, Leah, why don't you come on up
and give us some information and brilliance?
[ Applause ]
-Good morning, everyone. I'm Leah Tivoli.
I'm the director of City of Seattle's
innovation and performance team.
So I'm here to today to get all of you humans in the loop
in on how we see City of Seattle
are using AI in partnership with the community
to solve real problems for residents,
making services better, more responsive, more equitable,
easier to access.
When we solve problems, we co-create solutions
with the communities most affected,
and AI is no exception.
The human centered approach helps government work better
for everyone and reflects our commitment to race
and social justice.
So, as a demonstration of our commitment to equity,
we've launched a Community Innovation Hackathon series
in partnership with the AI House --
thank you, Yifan -- so that together
we can explore these new AI tools.
These hackathons are hands on spaces
where students, technologists, public servants,
and community members will work side by side
to tackle real challenges, and all skill levels are welcome
because many colleges and universities
don't have AI programs.
So students often learn the best through hands on experimentation
to understand that jagged edge, that jagged frontier of AI
as Mitch Weiss coined from the Harvard University.
The best way to learn AI is to use AI by building side projects
or joining hackathons like these.
So we are excited that two thirds
of our Hackathon participants here today are students,
and 85% of them already have experience using AI.
And so we have three hackathons on the calendar.
We have one today that's focused on
youth connection to services.
In October about permitting, and in November, customer service.
So let me talk a little bit about
why we need a Youth Connector Hackathon.
So last year we heard directly from hundreds of teens
through a mental health project
that loneliness, stress and anxiety
are major sources of stress
and that having access to social,
academic and wellness programs can make a real difference.
But finding those programs can be hard.
Information is scattered across government,
dozens of government agencies and nonprofits and teams,
let alone their parents or trusted adults,
are overwhelmed trying to dig through it all.
This is where AI can come in to solve one piece of this puzzle
and break down these silos.
We are challenging participants to design AI-powered tools
that turn this scattered online information into a reliable,
up to date catalog of youth enrichment opportunities
to help young people quickly find programs
that match their needs, interests, and schedules.
So we're really grateful to the AI House again.
Judges, will we have like over 10 judges
that are coming from city departments,
Ada Developers Academy, computing for all
local tech companies, and of course,
the youth that this product is trying to serve.
Seattle Pizza and Bar Technology and Alliance
is going to be serving lunch.
And thank you to Technology Alliance
and GeekWire for amplifying.
So just a little more information about permitting
and customer service, that's next.
So over the past 15 years,
we have seen permitting nearly triple.
These are -- this is not just one administration
or two or three.
We're talking like five administrations back.
And it's, you know, when we talk to developers and architects,
they name code complexity that's just increasing,
navigating all the city departments that are involved
and finding answers in the myriad of online information.
So we are really excited to get the community involved
in solving some of these problems,
surfacing the problems,
and helping us come up with creative solutions.
And we're calling this event the PACT Hackathon or PACT-Athon.
Okay, so mark your calendars for October 9th.
You can register at luma.com/pactathon,
and you can find out more about PACT at
maps.seattle.gov/pact.
We are taking a very human-centered design approach
with this website.
So right now we're in the discovery phase,
and you'll be watching the information evolve
as we get to more problem definitions,
solutioning and testing.
So our partnerships with the community do not end at events.
We're working, as the mayor mentioned, with CivCheck,
because today more than 50 to 70% of permit applications
start with missing or incomplete information.
So this leads to multiple rounds
of correction cycles and months of delay.
So we are working with CivCheck to try and see if
is it possible on the first go round to just get it right.
I don't know. We'll see.
We're working with them, and we'll be releasing results
and working with community partners
to test out this information.
In addition, the City of Seattle has partnered with Stanford's
Reg Lab to develop responsible use cases for AI
in the area of code harmonization and reform.
So if you're interested in these
and many of the other projects we have on the team,
visit the City Innovation Hub at seattle.gov.
So in closing, I truly believe
that we have an opportunity here in Seattle
to be a leader and set the national standard
for responsive, inclusive civic AI.
And I'm so excited you're here with us today,
so thank you.
[ Applause ]
-So continuing that theme, you'll hear over and over again
the city's want to get outside city hall walls
and outside of municipal tower.
You heard from the mayor.
We have the second biggest epicenter of AI talent,
and our ability to activate that is key to our success.
So you've seen from us our ability to interact
and partner with Gooey, with AI House,
with Plug and Play.
With so many of the talented -- University of Washington --
so many of the talent centers in our community.
So I'm happy to talk next and bring up Yifan Zhang,
who is the managing director of AI2 Incubator
and an initiative borne of the Allen Institute for AI.
A two-time founder, she was the CEO of Loftium,
an acquired startup focused on affordable
home ownership, and GymPact,
a top mobile fitness app which I may need soon,
and recognized in Entrepreneur's
50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs and Forbes 30 under 30.
She holds a BA in economics from Harvard University,
and she is one of the coolest people
I met because she also surfs, but, Yifan.
[ Applause ]
-Amazing. Hi, everyone!
It's so great to see all of you here.
This is a very exciting, full circle moment for me
because, uh, actually my first company, GymPact,
I started right after college graduation,
so I was tinkering with ideas as a student when I was at Harvard.
I'm really passionate about getting more youth involved
and really excited about the ideas that you have
and the ability to build it here at AI House.
Also, Leah was the person
that pulled me into anything related to the city.
I was a founder before.
I really didn't know that there was a way
to access the city and partner.
And since then, I think we built some really amazing things,
including AI House here.
So, what is AI House?
AI House is a public private initiative
that the City of Seattle and Mayor Harrell
invested in just six months ago.
It is the first physical hub dedicated to AI in this city.
It's a place where AI startups, researchers,
students and industry can come together in person
to build the next generation of technology companies.
AI2 Incubator, the private part of this equation
in conjunction with Ada Developers Academy,
we were born from the Allen Institute for AI
as Rob mentioned.
We've helped launch over 40 AI native companies
now worth more than -- well more than $1 billion
and creating nearly 1,000 jobs,
most of them here in the Pacific Northwest.
In just six months, AI House has become
a real center for Seattle's AI innovation economy.
We've hosted close to 100 events, many of which,
if you want to keep in touch,
we have a lot of events listed here.
You can scan that QR code as well.
We have brought an estimated 15,000 plus
people through these doors in the last few months,
and now housed 20-plus AI startups
right down the hall over there.
These companies have all received investments
from AI2 Incubator, as well as outside investors.
I'd like to talk about two parts of the work
that we do here at AI House that are relevant today,
especially given the city's new responsible
AI plan announcement.
First, on the topic of workforce development,
I'm very excited to see the city's focus
on upskilling workers on AI.
While certain parts of the AI stack like model training
are still limited to people like researchers,
AI products are surprisingly easy and accessible to use
and can immediately help all of us with everyday tasks.
The key is, and Leah mentioned this already,
you can't just read about AI.
You have to try it for yourself and keep using it every day.
So AI House, we've introduced AI to complete beginners
through projects like live coding hackathons open
to non-developers.
We partner with Ada Developers Academy
to really expand AI opportunities
to underrepresented groups.
And each month, we host hiring events
where 60 to 100 engineers come together in person
to meet AI startup founders in small,
personal, interactive groups.
These events have already led to hundreds
of job interviews and job offers after every single event.
We also run AI workshops and panels
to help engineers transition from big tech jobs
into AI startups.
And these are all ways that AI House
actively creates more touch points
for the community to be introduced to AI.
The second topic is around incubating startups.
So in 2025, I did the tally.
Our Seattle AI2 incubator startups have already raised
over $100 million in private venture capital
beyond our money, and they're applying AI
to really transform real industries
like mortgage underwriting
so you can have a better experience
the next time you buy a house.
That's Friday Harbor.
Immigration, turning month long,
six to nine-month complex processes
into days to apply for a visa.
That's KCM.
Lowering alarm fatigue for our ICU
intensive care unit nurses.
That's CalmWave.
These are all startups
that are right down the hall here at AI House,
and they've all raised money to be able to continue
their great work here.
So it's really exciting,
and I want to encourage all the Hackathon participants
that this isn't just a fun project.
Your idea can become a real company
that attracts investment
and you can make real impact in the world today.
So our thesis here at AI2 Incubator
is that AI creates value when engineers and researchers
can build alongside industry domain experts
who deeply understand real problems.
AI House brings together all of these people,
and I absolutely see that in the city's
policy announcement today as well.
I'll end by saying AI is a profound
generational technology.
But for those of us who work with AI every day,
it's clear that it's still the early innings.
Building AI products that actually work
is still incredibly tough.
There's no playbook.
The underlying models improve constantly
and the infrastructure is still being built.
But the benefit of being early
is that we get to actively shape this technology
and how it's used.
It's exciting to see the city acting as a leader
in implementing AI to solve real problems mentioned today,
like housing permits to public service
responsiveness, accessibility.
But I do think that to succeed in this era of AI
requires a creative, nimble, iterative mindset,
dare I say, a startup founder mindset
and a willingness to experiment.
That's the spirit of AI House,
and we look forward to continuing
our collaboration with the city.
Thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
-So, take that energy and we're going to be doing
a Hackathon very shortly
because that's the -- that's the kind of
let's go do it mentality and sense
that we're about to apply.
On that ethic, this is actually the city's
second AI policy.
The first one was a generative policy.
And that iteration was, where do we go next?
And so the city has now 40, 41 AI pilots in.
25 done 16 active.a
And the matrix we had was learn in impact as AI first comes in.
And remember we're roughly 1015 days in
since ChatGPT kind of caught people's attention and blew up.
And we said right at the front of industry
and these waves is usually not the point
at which you make big bets.
And so learn first, activate your partners
and then iterate to success.
And so this is the second version
of our policy to Yifan's point, and where we're saying,
how do we do this together?
To that point, our last speaker is Jared Reimer.
He is the AI -- lead AI architect
for the University of Washington, and has become
a great thought partner and friend.
And hopefully soon we'll be able to announce
some even cooler things.
And he's responsible for positioning the university
as a global leader in AI.
You might recognize him because he was a founder of Cascadeo,
an international managed services firm.
You might actually recognize some of his work even more.
Anyone here use a Nest thermostat?
He had a hand in that.
Anyone here watched "Silicon Valley?"
He was an advisor.
And Seattle Internet Exchange,
he had a leadership role there.
So, you know what?
I'm just not going to put myself any more in a hole.
Jared, come on up.
[ Applause ]
-All right. Thank you, everyone.
So, Rob and I had been talking a lot lately about these topics,
and I thought it would be helpful, in closing,
to share some of the things I've learned
and observed about AI adoption,
both in enterprise and public sector.
So these are my personal opinions.
Probably the most important lesson
that I think we've learned is that you need
both a top down and bottom up strategy.
And by that I mean you need to provide trusted solutions
to your constituents.
You need to give them tools, because if you don't,
they will find them elsewhere.
But you also need to make sure
that they have a platform for innovation.
They need to be able to build the things they need
because they know how to do their jobs better than we do.
And what we've observed is that the organizations
that have empowered the people
that work there to innovate with AI do incredible things
that leadership would never have thought of.
And that's really the power of it, right?
Is it's so incredibly empowering.
It makes it possible for people
that previously would not have been able to build
their own tools to invent things that,
you know, really transform the way we live and work.
So you need to have both.
You need to have trusted solutions and tools
that are sanctioned, tested, validated,
held to the highest standards.
But you also need to allow people to innovate.
Ideally, you would do that in a contained,
controlled environment, because if you don't,
what you end up with is what Gartner calls AI anarchy.
The reality is people are going to do this
whether we give them the tools or not.
There is no way to stop people from using these tools,
and nor should we.
This technology is here. It's not going away.
It cannot be regulated, away or banned.
It can be the most powerful and transformative thing,
maybe in the last century, maybe even beyond that.
The key, I think, is empowering and enabling people.
Giving them a collection of tools
is a starting point, but it's not the end.
If you give them the platform and the guardrails
and the training and the support to innovate,
you'll be absolutely amazed at what people come up with.
That, to me, is probably the single
biggest lesson that I've learned.
People are really smart and really creative,
and if they have the tools and the opportunity,
they will make things better.
Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people
want to make things better and they just don't know how.
But suddenly with AI, you don't need to be a developer.
You don't need to learn a programming language.
You can innovate in whatever language you speak.
AI doesn't care, and that's really, really amazing.
Nothing like that has ever happened before.
The other thing that's different,
AI is the first technology that makes itself better.
Every other technology before it was what it was
and humans made it better.
But AI has started this virtuous cycle of innovation
that we don't know where it leads,
but we know it's going to be really impactful.
And, you know, there's a kind of a cliché.
Today is the worst AI will ever be, right?
It's only going to keep getting better from here.
So for all of its flaws and issues
and they are real, you should expect and assume
that this is just the beginning of something much bigger.
So I've looked across government, education, industry.
I worked in consulting for 18 years
and worked with, like, 100 different companies,
and these patterns seem to reoccur throughout
those different entities.
So my theory is Seattle has all of these things, right?
We have amazing industry,
both mature and early stage.
We have a great and growing and investment community.
We have fantastic city government.
We have leading educational institutions.
If you put all that together,
you know we have a right to play and a right to win.
Like, we deserve to win in this space.
We have all of the things that you need to succeed.
One of the other things.
It's important that we bring everybody along,
and that's not just the workforce.
That is every stakeholder, every member of the community.
You'll learn a lot from what
these people want to contribute and say.
And I think it's easy to assume that, you know,
like IT Leadership knows all the answers,
but people come up with great ideas.
And engaging them and talking with them
and meeting with them
and seeing what they build with AI
is probably the most interesting thing.
So I applaud the city's efforts.
I think these are fantastic moves in the right direction.
And thank you, everyone, for your time.
[ Applause ]
-All right, with that, we're about to wrap.
a few final comments and thoughts and an invitation.
So you've heard from a number of leaders,
all towards the ethic of we have all the right tools,
assets and people.
If anyone can be successful with AI, it is Seattle,
our region, our people.
And the invitation is let's do it together.
It is no mistake and there can be no lack of intention
in the days and years ahead.
The city is making that invitation with our policy,
with our plan to be a partner in the days and years ahead,
to do this work and to solve the civic challenges ahead.
The mayor, in his work with the city council
and community partners, has said, go solve these challenges.
Open the door, partner. And he wants to see results.
He actually has an analogy.
You might not like the number,
but you got to step on the scale.
And unfortunately, it's true in two ways for me.
But the work ahead of us is profound.
And so with that, Mayor, if your game,
and we can answer any questions for folks.
We are at that point.
And then once we finish that,
we get to do the cool work of the Hackathon
and see how technology can help the community.
-A question for the mayor about this...
-[ Indistinct ] -Okay.
Question is, this plan talks about workforce transition.
And I'm curious, what sort of workforce
transition the city is planning and what jobs might be
eliminated by AI in the future?
-Yeah, it's premature to really --
That's a good question.
It's a little premature to talk about that.
All of our, for those that don't know the city's government,
we have between 12,000 to 14,000 employees,
whether you're including contractors
and part-time employees, and about 80% of our labor force
is bargained for by unions.
So these are ongoing discussions.
We work collaboratively with our labor partners.
And as we look at certain tasks
that could possibly be replaced by AI,
we always make sure, as we said, with a human-centered approach,
we work with our labor partners to make sure
that these discussions are open and transparent
and we see what other opportunities there are.
So just in moving objects, so to speak.
-Can I ask about, this is the only other
question I'm asking, I promise.
The generative AI policy from 2023,
there's evidence that some departments
are using AI, including SPD.
I'm wondering, has the city authorized departments
to use generative AI?
And what's the penalty if they violate any of the requirements,
like disclosure, like human in the loop?
-Are you going to take a shot of that?
-Yeah, so the 2023 policy is canceled
and replaced by the new policy.
And the new policy actually says follow the security,
privacy and responsible use structure
that we've implemented in that policy.
And we want you to use AI, but there are the prohibited use
section and the high risk.
And then you have to follow that structure,
but then do use it.
And the IT department has to review those things with them.
So there aren't any penalties per se,
but you do have to go through a rigor and process.
The other thing that we are implementing as of September
is as part of the Mayor's Information
Technology subcabinet, a review process of all those
AI uses to make sure that there's a cross check.
And if there are any uses of concern,
that we see those and if we have to come back
to any, that we do so.
-And has there been any, in that interim period,
if there's been any use of AI that was not authorized
or I mean -- -We come back to those.
-Is this retroactive?
-Yeah, yeah. And we come back to those.
And if they want money to fund those, then,
like the ongoing money because AI is not free,
then those are then captured and we can say
those need to be identified
and you have to answer those questions.
And so it's a way to put rhyme and reason and controls
where they need to be.
-Yeah, I wanted to also, talking to folks
that I don't get the privilege of interfacing with a lot
is that I also sit on the -- I chair
the Technology and Innovation committee
for the US Conference of Mayors
and the US Conference of Mayors is a national organization
where the mayors of both all the major cities
and smaller cities and towns convene several times a year.
And we, in my capacity as chair,
I've shared with them our first version of our AI policy,
our second version of our AI policy,
and talk with them about what we're
trying to do here in Seattle.
So I'm saying all that to say that as we have fun
developing our tools here, that we're in a position
to share them with other cities as well.
And when we talk about leading in this space,
this gives us the opportunity to truly lead.
So a question back here.
-Yeah. Hi. Anna Edgerton with Bloomberg.
As you're proposing
and implementing a broad spectrum of policies,
tax policy, public safety policy,
all the things that would attract companies to Seattle.
How do you weigh both competition with and kind of
the beneficial relationship with the east side and how --
-The East side? -Yes.
-And being like Bellevue? -Yeah, Bellevue.
-Or New York? You say east side.
-No, not quite that east, just really close east.
You know, when a company is choosing where to
bring their employees and, you know, get established,
hopefully eventually lease office space.
How do you make Seattle more attractive than other,
you know, other kind of close in parts of the region?
Or is that even important to do?
-First of all, I want to thank publicly
all of the great partnerships that we have with the Bloomberg,
with Bloomberg in many capacities.
They've been a partner with us in this space
and other initiatives that we're trying to work on.
So I want to acknowledge that.
To answer your question directly,
we are competitive here.
I want the talent here in Seattle,
not in New York or Bellevue, wherever you describe that.
And so what we try to do is look at everything
we have to offer here.
The fact is, is that we're much larger than Seattle,
I mean, than Bellevue.
I mean, there are a small city, number one.
But number two, we have our own soul,
our rhythm, our culture here.
And I own that, that, you know,
I have to go there for meetings and whatnot.
And I tell people you want the coolest restaurants,
the best music, the best culture, the best arts,
the best waterfront. Look how cool this is.
They don't have anything like this in Bellevue.
And so we think that to have a sort of cool cultural
rhythm here in Seattle, that puts us on the map.
And quite frankly, look at the diversity we have in this room.
So I think Seattle has its own unique history
that we play to for employees.
We are bullish on climate change, race and social justice.
We are leaders, innovators.
The Seattle World's Fair was not in Bellevue.
It was here in 1962, which put us on the map.
So yes, we're very competitive here.
They do not have an AI house in Bellevue.
We thought of it here. So we will compete.
And you all are with me, right? See, that's why they're here.
That's why they're not in Bellevue.
[ Applause ]
And we have to be realistic enough to know
that not just Bellevue, but San Francisco and other cities.
Austin, Texas, as an example.
And quite frankly, we're -- we're also collaborative.
We have to be. Some of our greatest ideas
may come from other places.
We'll just replicate them, change them,
modify them and bring them here.
But that's part of the journey of entrepreneurship.
That's what entrepreneurs do.
But I welcome -- In fact,
let me close that question by saying thank you
for being here in Seattle.
You do have choices on
where you spend your most precious commodity,
which is your time, your talent.
Thank you for being here in Seattle,
and I do not give you permission to go anywhere else, by the way.
[ Laughter ]
Okay, if that's all the questions.
Why don't you close us out, Rob?
I'll close with saying thank you.
I look forward to the Hackathon, but go ahead, Rob.
-Actually, that's it.
We're about to have some fun with the Hackathon.
And just a reminder what it's about.
Connecting youth and mental wellness,
and that was a challenge the mayor set.
It's one of the One Seattle initiatives.
So let's go and do great things for the community.
All right. All right.
[ Applause ]