At a Heber City Council meeting Feb. 17, councilmembers discussed ideas for an “America 250” monument to commemorate the semi-quincentennial of the nation's founding.
They reviewed designs with flags, plaques and benches – all generated by artificial intelligence.
City manager Matt Brower said the monument design is just one of the ways Heber staff are embracing AI at work. He said it saves the city time and money.
“With the monument request, we’re able to use AI for the creation of a couple of illustrations, which we’re able to do in seconds,” he said. “Without AI, we’d have to go to perhaps an expert, and it would cost a lot more.”
City staff are also using AI to draft reports, review meeting minutes, proofread documents and more.
Brower said staff must review AI-generated reports to avoid hallucinations and other errors.
Meanwhile, the Heber City Police Department is relying on AI tools to review body camera footage and write incident reports.
Heber City isn’t the only local government outsourcing tasks to AI: Wasatch County Councilmember Erik Rowland recently said he’d used AI to summarize the entire draft environmental impact statement for the Heber Valley bypass.
“Thank goodness for AI,” he said at a county council meeting Feb. 11. “I went and took the liberty of uploading all 26 documents into AI, and it just basically started to help me understand what’s in here.”
Brower said he doesn’t see AI replacing human staff, but instead slowing the rate of future hiring in city government as Heber grows.
“By leveraging AI to the extent we can, I think we’ll be able to address the growing demands without hiring more staff, which I think is excellent for the city, because that will reduce the pressure on growing costs,” he said.
Brower has been enthusiastic about the technology’s potential. A year ago, he kicked off the annual city council retreat with an AI-generated video of himself.
Looking to the future, he envisions using AI for things like planning more efficient snowplow routes and reviewing zoning applications.
The city council discussed an artificial intelligence policy Jan. 6 but delayed a vote. Brower said it’s likely to be back on the agenda in a month or two. A draft of the policy includes guidelines for disclosing AI use, ensuring data privacy and more.
Meanwhile, city councilmembers were generally receptive to the AI-generated monument plans. They proposed some ways to combine different elements from each of the AI designs. City staff will bring revised plans to a future meeting.
Leaders say they’d like to have the America 250 monument in place for the Fourth of July.
Heber City is a financial supporter of KPCW.
