Rapid City council delays vote on artificial intelligence policy

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - The Rapid City Council voted Monday to delay a proposed artificial intelligence policy, giving city staff more time to make the rules clearer and more specific.

The proposed policy is separated into six sections totaling four pages and is guided by six principles: human oversight, transparency, accountability, equity and fairness, privacy and data protection, and security and reliability.

During public comment, Jordan Mason with Launch AI Works said the policy lacks specifics.

“Four pages, and ‘AI tools’ is never defined. Not once. Not the term ‘sensitive data,’ not ‘appropriate review,’ nothing,” Mason said.

“As written, this policy can’t tell an employee the difference between a Google search or a security breach. That’s not a technicality, that’s a major flaw and gap in a policy,” Mason said.

Ward 5 Councilwoman Callie Meyer brought up her concerns during the discussion, saying, “I guess this is my AI rant.”

“I think it’s good to be efficient. Do not let it make us lazy. Anytime someone starts a sentence with ‘AI thinks’ I immediately have to stop listening. AI does not think. AI has plagiarized every digital thought in the world to spit out something that it wants you to hear. There’s confirmation bias. It’s an echo chamber, which concerns me. There’s a reason the Marion-Webster Dictionary had the word ‘slop’ as the word of the year last year. You can thank generative AI for that. You can spot an AI-generated email a mile away. If a person cannot take the time to, you know, send me an email, I guess I can’t think of a reason why I would read it. If you’re having a computer write it, I will not be entertaining that,” Meyer said.

Rapid City IT Director Jim Gilbert said the policy was intended to be a guidepost, with a more in-depth toolkit to be released in the future.

Ward 4 Councilman John B Roberts proposed a motion to direct city staff to produce a more robust document on AI. It passed unanimously.

There was no date set for when a revised document may be drafted and ready for review.

You can read the full proposed AI policy set to be revised here.

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