Future Proofing IL in the Face of Automation

By Genevieve Thiers and Brandon Bordenkircher

“You’re either the one that creates the automation or you’re getting automated.” - Tom Preston Werner

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It can be hard sometimes to look at the financial state of Illinois at the moment and find hope, much less opportunity. But times of chaos and disruption can actually be the best times to build and redesign for an uncertain future. As the State of Illinois continues to struggle financially, it has the opportunity to find ways to utilize technology and automation, both internally and externally, in order to become more nimble and cost effective while at the same time increasing the quality of life for Illinoians.

Our paper lays out steps the State of Illinois can take in order to future proof its residents and workforce in the face of automation. It is true that “technological gains in one area can have unintended, and negative, impacts in others areas,” (Bordenkircher, 2020) but if the right leaders and policy are put in place, a road to change can be established that is not just painless, but exciting.

INTRODUCTION

When people think of automation, they often jump straight to self-driving cars and a vision of the future that comes from Blade Runner. But automation as we see it in IL is already more advanced than we know and will proceed at a lower rate of speed than we expect. We already eat in restaurants that employ no dishwasher in the back due to AI innovation. We can now walk straight into a Whole Foods and back out again without seeing a cashier. In the future, we won’t see a drastic turn overnight to self-driving cars and flying hoverboard drones. Instead, what’s most likely to be fully automated in twenty years is fleets of Ubers and Lyfts, trucking and shuttle services around colleges and airports. Personal cars will see a much more pervasive creep of features until they are almost as sufficient as a self-driving car, but possibly still featuring some kind of driver participation and hybrid functionality. We already see these features now in automatic parking, specialized cruise control, automatic lane centering and driver awareness alerts for drowsy driving. Eventually, those that are lucky enough to have a car will consider it almost an extra room of their house that they just happen to travel in. But most consumers will simply use automated transport as it’s safe and easier.

Illinois has massive opportunities for automation innovation, across almost every state office. From energy grid to transportation to WIFI to streetlights, the possibilities are endless. But IL is in rough financial shape however, so it can be hard for leaders right now to think about anything but bailing out the ship, much less building for the future. Year-over-year, state Governments are required to do more with less, and unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue (Siripurapu and Jonathan Masters, 2021). The Brookings Institute projects that state/local government revenues will decline $155 billion in 2020, $167 billion in 2021, and $145 billion in 2022 (Sheiner and Campbell, 2020). Unlike the federal government, state and local governments generally have to balance their operating budgets; they can’t borrow to finance large deficits which means states like Illinois are in trouble.

Before COVID-19 hit, the State of Illinois was struggling with a long-standing backlog of unpaid bills, huge unfunded public pension liabilities, Illinoisans moving out of the state at an unprecedented rate, a constant gap between revenues and obligations, a rainy-day fund down to zero, and a credit rating that has the state moving closer to becoming the first ‘junk’ state with a negative credit outlook. Illinois is reported to have the second-worst fiscal health in the nation for the second year in a row with the state earning an “F” grade as a “sinkhole state,” with each taxpayer being responsible for $52,000 in order for the state to pay off its bills, $226 billion total according to the website TruthInAccounting. The majority of Illinois’ debt comes from state worker benefits, $56.1 billion in retiree health care debt and $144.2 billion in public pension debt, although Moody’s Investor Services pegs pension debt at $241 billion using more conservative estimates of investment returns (Szalinski, 2020). Now, due to COVID-19, Illinois saw a 18% reduction in General Fund Revenue, a loss totaling $6.9 billion (Ingram and Horton, 2020). Illinois ranked 6 in states that need the most financial help due to COVID (McCann, 2020).

Illinois Fiscal Health Stats:

• State with the second-worst fiscal health for two years in a row
• Earned an “F” grade as a “sinkhole state”
• $226 billion in outstanding bills (each taxpayer would have to pay $52,000 each)
• Saw an 18% reduction in General Fund Revenue ($6.9 billion total) due to COVID-19
• Ranked #6 in states that need the most financial help due to COVID-19

COVID-19 was a real factor, despite its location on the tail end of this list. When the pandemic hit, the state issued a statewide stay-at-home order and saw the shutdown of thousands of businesses. This led to a decline in revenue from taxes on income, sales, motor fuel, and more, which means: Illinois will now face an increasing strain on infrastructure and public services (Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, 2020; Schuster, 2020; Norton, 2020).

In short, state officials need to (again) provide more services with less funding. And while this can seem like the “same old same old” thinking that got us into trouble in the first place; factors are aligning for a new and different future that might just surprise us with how malleable it can be. Automation does not have to be something we dread or something that is going to make a bad situation even worse. If Illinois plays its cards right, the solution to its current woes could be becoming a leader in automation. But its leaders must be open to innovation, must be adamant about getting unions on board and must be eager to use storytelling to ease the road into the future.

History supports the increase in quality of living that automation can bring. Take a look at the graph (courtesy of McKinsey Global Institute) which shows a sharp uptick in GDP due to the First Industrial Revolution, bolstered by the Second Industrial Revolution, and increased further by recent computer and information technology (Reamer, 2014). “Technology has had a unique role in powering growth and transforming economies. Adopted technology becomes embodied in capital, whether physical or human, and it allows economies to create more value with less input” (Manyika, et al., 2013). Put simply, workers in Illinois will be able to work smarter and not harder!

Global GDP Growth Fueled by Innovation

SOURCE: Angus Maddison, “Statistics on world population, GDP and per capita GDP, 1–2008 AD,” the Maddison Project database; McKinsey Global Institute analysis

The Difference Between Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Before diving into these new technologies and their effect on our workforce and our state, we need to understand what exactly we’re talking about, so let’s get some terms straight. The dictionary definition of automation is “the technique of making an apparatus, a process, or a system operate automatically,” while the International Society of Automation’s definition is “the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the production and delivery of products and services.” In automation, the environmental parameters are known at the time of programming and do not change during operations (or cause errors and issues if they do.) The purpose of automation is letting machines perform monotonous repetitive tasks more cheaply, efficiently, and reliably than a person could. This allows people to focus on more important tasks that require human judgment and creativity. It also often results in higher quality with fewer errors.

The term “artificial intelligence,” on the other hand, is the overarching branch of computer science that focuses on building smart machines capable of performing tasks that usually require human intelligence (McCarthy, et al. 1955). Perhaps the most discussed and relevant subfield of AI is Machine Learning, or “any system that gets better at its job by adding more data instead of more code,” according to Dan Ratner, former Director of Technology at Obama 2012 and current CEO of PublicGood.com.

Machine learning and automation are frequently linked since the application of machine learning as a control system for automation is unlocking whole new sets of capabilities not available before from reliable voice recognition (like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant) to self-driving cars. But each is a distinct advance and both fields are moving rapidly. So, to put all this in a nutshell, automation on its own is when we have a machine take over something for us, like wrapping a candy on a conveyor belt, and AI is when a machine learns to be a better chess player each time it plays without human intervention. (At its extreme, AI may create human-like intelligence or even consciousness, the so-called “singularity”, but this has not yet been demonstrated and is still theoretical.)

New York City’s attempt to understand how automated decision systems are impacting its citizens was historic and well-intentioned, but went “horribly wrong.” The task force looked promising with political allies and leading experts in AI appointed, but the conflict came when participants couldn’t decide what an automated decision system actually was. It’s not easy to come up with recommendations for something unless you can have agreement on what that “something” is (Cahn, 2019).

The main thing to note here is that when we say “automation,” right now, we’re no longer just talking about teaching a machine in an assembly line to package cans in a box. Our levels of data collection and extrapolation have become so good that we’re teaching cars to drive themselves and cashiers to work human-free. These are not “simple” tasks in the way that people think of a factory line in a canning plant, but they can be broken into simple steps that can be taught one by one, and that’s the critical difference. We are hitting a point where AI is getting so good at machine learning that it’s taking over in real-life interactions with humans, which was previously beyond our reach. So it’s helpful to think about the concepts here of AI and automation as if they are merging and blurring….we want to teach the computer chess, because of the intellectual challenge, but we also realistically understand that it’s useful as we chase that to teach it more useful and complex transactions like driving and being a cashier to free us more and more time for pure AI exploration.

So for the purposes of this paper, we will refer to the utilization of automation and artificial intelligence interchangeably since our focus isn’t so much how it works, but more the effects of the technology and why it would be beneficial.

Fear of Technology Echoed Throughout History

According to Randy Kowalski, CEO of the Illinois Smart City and Region Association (ISCRA), “what we are seeing right now with automation echoes the changes in the early 1900’s — specifically 1910 to 1925. The early 1900’s brought technology that revolutionized our world: electricity, telephones, cars and airplanes, all at once. Because of these advances, we became a highly enhanced society.” But these advances weren’t just accepted sight unseen, they brought challenges and fears.

Scholars have established causation between the adoption of machines and the frequency of riots during the 1830s (Caprettini and Voth, 2017) and there have been many more examples of anti-tech protests throughout history from the Luddite uprising to the Captain Swing Riots in Britain during the early 19th century. Another study by Frey (2019) found that the Second Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century lacked anti-tech riots due to the increasing supply of good jobs. Research shows that fear of new technology could even be the cause of recent electoral outcomes in Sweden and the United States (Dal Bo et al. 2017, Frey et al. 2017).

A study by Molinder (2019), analyzed the impact of the adoption of electricity in early 20th century Sweden and how it influenced labor conflicts, specifically 2,487 labor strikes. The study looked at the launch of local electrification; at the time it was perceived as pervasive and led to Sweden experiencing one of the industrial world’s highest incidence of strikes per capita (Enflo and Karlsson, 2018). So, yeah, not everybody is gung-ho about technology.

According to the book Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies (Juma, 2016) most controversies over innovation and new technologies are associated with the perceptions of risks and benefits (i.e., perceptions about immediate risks and long-term benefits; benefits to only small sections of society, and the threat of altering cultural identities). In short, debates focus over innovative technologies are more about the perception of risk, opposed to the actual impact of the risks (Ropeik, 2010).

As you can see from the examples below, it may be a bit of both.

The Problem with Electricity

The first commercially successful form of electricity was the carbon arc lamp. These early lights were extremely bright and the high voltages brought with them fire hazard essentially making them too dangerous for indoor use. In fact, many theaters burned as a result of the excessive heat or sparks emitted, and the lamp had been known to electrocute and burn technicians with ease (Whelan, 2016). These lights would reach temperatures of several thousand degrees Celsius, and so the lamps needed to be placed at height and well out of reach and were far too powerful for indoors. Electric domestic lighting wasn’t available until the invention of the incandescent light bulb (Science Museum, 2020). One of the people too afraid to use electricity was U.S. President Benjamin Harrison. Harrison had White House staff turn the lights on and off because he was scared of getting electrocuted (Nowak, 2018). Now, as we flip light switches without a moment’s hesitation, it seems hilarious that anyone was ever afraid. But they were. And it worked out.

The Problem with Telephones

In 1933, fifty seven years after the telephone was invented, people thought telephones were dangerous. According to an article in the New Yorker: “They weren’t human, they popped or exploded.” People also feared the cord might shock them and if they stood too close to it during a thunderstorm they would be hit by lightning. When people saw a telephone in a hotel or office, they stood a safe distance away from it or picked it up carefully (LaFrance, 2015). Obviously, after years of use, people became more comfortable with the telephone; however, it should be noted the fear of an exploding phone is still very real, as several Galaxy Note 7 phones exploded due to faulty batteries (Villas-Boas, 2017; Ghosh, 2017).

The Problem with Automobiles

A magazine article in 1904 called automobile drivers “a reckless, bloodthirsty, villainous lot of… crazy trespassers,” and in 1909, the Farmers’ Anti-Automobile League urged its members to dedicate their Sunday to chasing, shooting and shouting at automobiles. (Dann, 2019). So, I think it’s safe to say people were hesitant to accept this new technology, but they may have had a point.

In New York City on September, 13th 1899 Henry Hale Bliss was the first pedestrian hit and killed by a car; the headline in The New York Times read “Fatally Hurt By Automobile” (Eschner, 2017). The deaths escalated from there.

By 1908, the City of Detroit recognized auto accidents as a major problem, 31 people were killed in car crashes by summer, and so many pedestrians were injured the city didn’t even bother recording the insurmountable injuries. By 1917, three-quarters of auto fatalities were pedestrians with a large portion of those deaths the result of children playing in the street. Detroit only had 65 cars on the road resulting in 171 accidents, 168 of them were fatal. Soon thousands of cars jammed Detroit streets, driven by inexperienced drivers (Loomis, 2015).

The invention of the car led to many negative externalities (e.g., deaths and injuries) but this led to other inventions and regulations: stop signs, lane markings, one-way streets, traffic signals, police squads dedicated to traffic control, and a judicial court for traffic violations (Loomis, 2015).

And now, it’s the only way we know how to travel.

The Problem with Aviation

Aviation is another great example of advances in technology bringing about many challenges. In the 1920’s the accident-prone aviation sector wanted the government to regulate the industry. Regulation didn’t come until 1925 and, even then, efforts to improve safety and save lives were impeded by the friction between the federal government that was tasked with both regulating and promoting the industry (Messier, 2016).

According to an article in USA Today, early commercial flights were for the brave or, let’s be frank, people with a death wish. Planes would drop hundreds of feet mid air with no warning regularly, air sickness due to lack of oxygen was a regular occurrence, and passengers were treated to extreme temperature fluctuations. Not ideal to say the least.

Automated advances in the aviation sector have helped reduce airline fatalities by roughly a factor of two in every decade and have edged toward a factor of three in the last decade (Nicas et al., 2019). However, recent tragedies — resulting from the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) designed for the Boeing 737 MAX — have demonstrated that new safety issues must be considered (Barnett, 2020; Specia, 2018; Hadra Ahmed et al., 2019).

These recent tragedies have shown us that not only is there still room for improvement, but that technological gains in one area can have unintended — and negative — impacts in others areas (Bordenkircher, 2020). This fact underlines one of Robert P. Mark’s myths of the impact of automation: “as the investment in automation increases, the investment needed in human expertise decreases” (2008). This myth could not be further from the truth. In fact, as automation increases, human expertise needs to increase or problems manifest.

AI alone is not a solution.

AUTOMATION IN GOVERNMENT

Municipalities, counties and states across the United States have been incorporating automation and other technologies in order to do three things according to Randy Kowalski: “save money, generate revenue or increase the health, safety and welfare of citizens.” There is a lot of knowledge to be gleaned from the pilots listed below as they present an opportunity for other jurisdictions to learn and incorporate these technologies into their own government with tweaks and additions. These are just some of the many examples.

Services (Kiosks)

CASEYVILLE, IL: The State of Illinois has 6,963 units of local government, at least 35% more governments than any other state. As Illinois’ tax base continues to shrink and constituents continue to feel the squeeze with new and higher taxes, Illinois would be smart to consider automation to help consolidate services and departments. The Caseyville Library, in southwest Illinois, is a great example of consolidating services via automation. Caseyville piloted a contactless service courtesy of the Illinois Smart City and Region Association (ISCRA) and FrontDesk’s Suites innovative kiosk technology which aimed to optimize efficiency, reduce employee stress, and result in safe service and satisfied customers.

In addition to touchless services, the Caseyville Library will eventually be adding various county and state services such as licensing programmes (hunting, fishing and more). Instead of having to go to multiple government offices for marriage certificates, driver licenses and others the citizen would be enabled to perform these all in one place with a contactless service (Smart Cities World Team, 2020).

CHICAGO, IL: The City of Chicago has implemented “EZ Pay Stations,” kiosks where citizens are able to: pay most city bills and city business taxes; pay for parking, red light, and automated speed enforcement tickets; however, the kiosks do not allow for the payment of booted vehicles or suspended licenses.

NYC, NY: NYC launched a consortium-funded test of LinkNYC kiosks that has unfortunately fallen on some hard times. Intended to create free WIFI across all five boroughs, the “Links” as they were called were supposed to replace the city’s pay phones, providing free domestic phone calls, WIFI and USB charging ports. The first of the kiosks was unveiled in 2016 to great fanfare, due to the fact that Alphabet Sidewalk Labs (of Google) is an investor. The project was projected to bring in $550 mm in revenue via advertising but has only collected “millions” to date, most of which is still owed to the city. Only 1800 of the 4500 kiosks were installed, with a focus on Manhattan, and installations stopped in 2018.

Services (Chatbots)

COLORADO: During the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, many Colorado citizens were having issues with their Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance fillings. Even though the CDLE has almost 250 staffers working at their call centers, with 90 staffers devoted to PUA claims questions, citizens still had issues getting through. To help solve the issue the CDLE has added a chatbot that answers frequently asked questions to its unemployment site as well as added a form to its website where people can request a callback. Chatbots utilize natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning in order to process received text by interpreting, inferring and determining what was meant (written or said) and then by defining a series of appropriate actions moving forward (Miller, 2020).

Identification

COLORADO: Colorado offers myColorado Digital ID, an app allowing their citizens to upload their driver’s license, registration and insurance for easy digital access. The Colorado State Patrol along with two municipalities, Colorado Springs and Broomfield, have adopted the contactless digital ID technology. The technology is beneficial for health and safety reasons. First, it’s quicker for officers since everything is in the app and drivers don’t have to rummage around for three different pieces of information, so officers can get back to their patrol car safely. In addition, officers don’t have to handle paper back and forth, which is a problem during a pandemic. The state app is also being used by 300 restaurants, bars, breweries and liquor stores as well as as few state agencies. The app currently cannot be used to board a flight, and most law enforcement agencies will not be able to accept it for years (Todd, 2021).

LOS ANGELES, CA: The City of Los Angeles worked with MoCaFi and IGNITE Cities to launch the Angeleno Card initiative, a collaboration between the Mayor’s Office, the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles and Accelerator for America. The Angeleno Card provides financial assistance of between $700 and $1,500 for in-need households via no-fee debit cards provided by Mastercard’s City Possible network. Future programmes that offer direct aid will go through the Angeleno Account (a digital identity app) which builds on the Angeleno Account initiative, while aiming to provide citizens, businesses and visitors with a single-password digital ID account to access a wide range of services and apps provided by the city (e.g., Department of Water and Power, the city’s 311 system and the Department of Ageing) (Wray, 2020).

CHICAGO, IL: The Office of the City Clerk has launched something similar with the Chicago CityKey, an optional, valid, government-issued ID card originally created to reduce barriers to those who have difficulty accessing government-issued identification. The card now has the ability to serve as residents’ library card, transit card and benefits card for cultural institutions, sports teams, local businesses, and even prescription drugs. No registration or pre-qualification is needed to apply, and every Chicago resident is eligible regardless of age, insurance, income, health or immigration status.

HONOLULU, HI: Smart city consulting firm, IGNITE Cities, helped the City of Honolulu partner with Mastercard, MoCaFi, and Sunrise Banks to launch the Honolulu City Immediate Response Incentive Mastercard (City Card). The City Card was loaded with $500 to use at grocery stores on the island of Oahu. It was mailed to residents who faced financial burdens due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and residents were told to keep their City Card for possible future use.

“This card will be used in the future. [I]t could be a card that you could give to homeless individuals to buy food, it could be a card given to people when a hurricane is coming to stock up on 14 days of food. It could be used for people impacted by a disaster, flooding. Afterwards this card can be used to help them buy blue tarp to cover their roofs from leaking,” Mayor Caldwell said. (KITV Web Staff, 2020)

Blockchain

MIAMI, FL: Mayor Francis Suarez has proposed paying municipal workers and collecting taxes in Bitcoin to promote cryptocurrencies. The proposal allows City of Miami workers to choose to receive all or a portion of their pay in Bitcoin as well as allowing people to pay their property taxes or city fees in crypto. The resolution, which passed 4–1, agrees to study the practicality of such steps, as well as analyze the feasibility of investing government funds in Bitcoin; however, Florida statutes have strict limitations on how local governments can invest surplus funds, so that is yet to be determined (Levin and Smith, 2021).

Energy (Streetlights)

SYRACUSE, NY: The city purchased 18,000 streetlights and retrofitted them with LED lights and installed light control sensors. The sensors allow city officials to control street lights’ brightness and receive alerts when the lights go out. The city is expected to save $3 million annually (Norwood, 2019).

Energy (Smart Grid)

Ensuring that states have reliable, affordable and safe energy is of the utmost importance. When states fail in this regard it is a humanitarian crisis, as Texas has shown us. But the problems in Texas weren’t a surprise: a severe storm in 2011 resulted in equipment malfunctions and a $750,000 fine from state energy regulators for failing to deliver promised power to the grid; in 2014, power plants owned by Texas’ largest electricity producer shutdown under frigid temperatures during a 12 hours time span bringing the state’s electric grid to the brink of collapse (Collier, 2021). And in 2021, the grid finally collapsed killing at least 58 people due to carbon monoxide poisoning, car crashes, drownings, house fires and hypothermia (McDonnel, 2021). And while the citizens of Texas suffered, certain Senators fled to Cancun.

CALIFORNIA: California is leading the pack in deploying smart grid technology, next-generation electric power systems that utilize information technology in the generation, delivery, and consumption of electrical energy (Matyi, 2017). California is in the lead not only because they are a progressive state, but because smart grid technology will double as wildfire defense via Smart Grid Sensors by Identifying specific patterns of line disturbances might indicate fire threats; Providing load and voltage data; Confirming switching operations and verifying outage restoration (TDWorld.com, 2020)

Mobility (Autonomous Vehicles)

CHICAGO, IL: Bronzeville neighborhood Community of the Future initiative brought forth a partnership between autonomous vehicle company, Innova EV, ComEd, and the Bronzeville Community Development Partnership organization to test a unique electric vehicle (EV) transportation service to help seniors in Bronzeville get to and from the grocery store, public transit stations, the pharmacy, and other neighborhood destinations. The collaboration sought to leverage smart grid technology and related services to support the community’s sustainability goals and enhance everyday life (Lhall, 2019).

The City Tech Collaborative in Chicago also has an Advanced Mobility Initiative to create an innovation roadmap that can serve as a flexible, multi-year plan integrating policy and technology for advanced urban mobility. The effort will also include public engagement and a civic user testing group doing workshops, pilots and demonstrations.

Mobility (Tollways)

NORFOLK, VA: the City of Norfolk utilizes E-ZPass transponder technology, like the State of Illinois; however, their technology goes a step further than Illinois, by implemented sensors in the road that will know whether a vehicle has more than two axles so the city knows how to charge the driver the higher for a “heavy vehicle” toll rate (Forster, 2014).

Telehealth

Health professionals have been struggling with keeping up with the changing rules/laws in each state related to telehealth/telemedicine across state lines since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although many states already had laws in place requiring/allowing telehealth services, the requirements were not universal. In response to the pandemic, some state Governors have issued emergency orders to increase access to telehealth services.

The states with no telehealth coverage, prior to COVID-19, were: Alabama, Idaho, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. According to the American Psychological Association website, prior to the pandemic 44 states had some kind of existing telehealth coverage mandate. That being said, all 50 states have had some kind of emergency state action pertaining to telehealth services coverage since the pandemic (2020).

Emergency (Response):

Delays in response times could mean the difference between life and death. Automation has the ability to address inefficiencies in the emergency services by making it easier for citizens to contact the services through new digitally-enabled channels like text messaging in addition to incorporating location data allowing for a more speedy response to emergencies.

CHICAGO, IL: The City of Chicago launched a partnership with Smart911, a free and voluntary service that allows users to create a safety profile that automatically feeds the dispatch service lifesaving information such as location, home layout, vehicle details, family members, pre-existing medical conditions, mental health information, and other notes that could be helpful in an emergency. The information residents provide today can help save a life or more quickly de-escalate a tense situation tomorrow (Plautz, 2018).

Chicago also has their other technology to assist with emergency response. The first is their Private Sector Camera Initiative that links camera systems from Chicago based organizations, companies and sister agencies into the OEMC state-of-the-art unified video surveillance network. The second is Operation Virtual Shield which enables the City to expand its use of surveillance cameras, biological, chemical, and radiological sensors which are fed into the City’s Operations Center, where emergency response occurs.

Emergency (Flood Management)

LOUISIANA: FEMA has struggled to maintain accurate and reliable flood maps as cities all over the U.S. struggle with flooding due to storms and elevating oceans. As climate change gains traction, alters the geography of coastal areas, this problem will continue. Due to these issues State governments are using data to help constituents understand the risks and of flood zones. 80% of the nation’s coastal land loss occurs in Louisiana because of this issue, the state introduced their Master Plan Data Viewer an interactive tool allowing residents to visualize exactly how their community will be affected by various climate change and flooding scenarios over the next 50 years, and help educate them to reduce their risk through steps like emergency planning, structural retrofitting, and storm proofing (Gardner, 2019).

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA: Flooding has gotten severe in recent years and is projected to get worse in the coming decades. By 2080, the city is set to see a 3 foot sea level rise, putting tens of thousands of residents at risk. To figure out what works, a five-person team of public works employees is utilizing a massive amount of data to predict a future of less forgiving rainfall and higher water levels. Their modeling is getting more precise as the team nears the end of a multi-million-dollar, five-year update to this system (Coutu, 2020).

Elections (Security)

COLORADO: As many states struggled with coordinating their elections during the pandemic, Colorado remained light years ahead by switching to an almost all vote-by-mail elections prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. The Colorado General Assembly passed a law ensuring all registered voters automatically receive a ballot in the mail before every primary and general election. The state tossed aside assigned neighborhood polling places, and instead uses voter service centers, for anyone in a county to cast a ballot in person, drop off a completed ballot or register and as late as Election Day. In addition, Denver became one of the first places to allow voters to track their mail-in ballots online in 2009 and in May Colorado became only the fifth state to automatically send text or voice notifications to voters as their ballots move through the mail-in process. The state also deployed a system allowing voters to use the phone to resolve rejections of ballots for possible signature problems via text and photograph, confirming the handwriting and the person wielding the pen are authentic. The new system not only resulted in an increase in turnout, but also a decrease in cost (Theobald, 2020).

All of these innovations compounded with the fact that Colorado implemented almost every safety recommendation from election experts makes Colorado one of the safest states to vote. Safety recommendations include: recording every vote on a paper ballot, conducting rigorous post-election audits, ensuring every county is equipped with up-to-date voting machines, mandating election officials take part in security training, and requiring IT workers test computer networks for weaknesses (Hawkins, 2018).

Telework

COLORADO: In March 2020, the Colorado Office of Information Technology spent $2.4 million purchasing 1,800 Lenovo laptops to allow city workers to do their work remotely and ensure city services stay up and running. The state also spent $8,000 ramping up their VPN capacity by 200% in order to ensure security (Wood, 2020).

Economists Barrero, Bloom and Davis forecast that telework options in general will persist post-pandemic and that 22% of full workdays will be telework, up from less than 5% prior to COVID-19. This has been great for industries with work from home capabilities (Orszag, 2021).

Virtual Council Meetings

MIAMI, FL: Miami was forced to incorporate virtual meetings in part due to Mayor Francis Suarez testing positive for COVID19. The city conducted its first virtual commission meeting and introduced new methods of public participation (e.g. the public can leave pre-recorded public comment by calling a telephone number or submitting a prerecorded video which is then played during the virtual special meeting). The meeting is broadcasted live on the City’s website, Facebook, their Periscope account Channel 77 (local Comcast channel).

BAL HARBOUR VILLAGE, FL: Bal Harbour Village has incorporated virtual council meetings where residents had the option of sending their comments via email during the meeting (Flechas and Leibowitz, 2020).

Municipalities everywhere were not able to hold virtual council meetings as they wished. Tennessee and Nebraska, for example, had to issue executive orders to allow virtual public meetings (MULLINIX, 2020; Gage and Pinkerman, 2020). Ohio, on the other hand, had to pass House Bill 197 in order to temporarily allow public meetings via teleconference/video conference (Langel, 2020).

Social Media

Lack of follower engagement on platforms like Facebook or Twitter creates a huge challenge for government agencies and their lack of content, or variety of content, could be to blame (Cathers, 2018). “Citizens… expect [the] government to be as responsive and relatable as the brands they interact with in their daily lives,” according to Ben Cathers.

Governments often use the NextDoor webpage as a way to connect with people. This is something Chicago did when planning for CHI311. The Chicago OEMC regularly posts on NextDoor as well.

When it comes to elected officials there are several who’s use of social media stands out:

NEW JERSEY: Senator Cory Booker is known for directly engaging with his constituents via social media. According to Booker he was able to increase responsiveness toward residents. And draw more of our constituents in to participate in government.” By engaging with his constituents on social media, he improved service delivery and citizen satisfaction (Tran, 2020).

NEW YORK CITY, NY: Congress woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been an active twitter user and recently joined Twitch, a gaming app, to boost voter engagement in the presidential election (Carras, 2020). It’s this kind of out of the box engagement that could engage citizens that haven’t been reached by the Illinois State government.

And…there’s also Trump, but that’s 100% an example of what NOT to do…like literally ever.

Broadband and WiFi

We need to think of more sustainable and bolder options for broadband access and regulation. Broadband isn’t just a technical issue, it’s a health and economic issue too. Studies have shown that GDP growth is correlated with Broadband. A 2019 report suggests that an increase of 10% in fixed broadband penetration would yield an increase in 1.9% in GDP per capita (Katz and Callorda, 2019). Every aspect of our lives is connected, at least in some part, to the internet (e.g., healthcare, mental health, education, acquiring emergency information, job access, ability to telework, connecting with family, etc.).

FORT COLLINS, CO: A 2017 ballot measure helped launch Fort Collins’ “Connexion,” a community-driven and community-owned broadband utility. Families and businesses are able to get gigabit speeds, services, and support at reasonable prices. Construction for Connexion began in February 2019 and expansion is underway in neighborhoods across the City. It is estimated to take 2–3 years to complete the installation of the 100% fiber-optic network.

CHICAGO, IL: Chicago Connected, launched in June 2020, is a groundbreaking program that provides high-speed internet service to CPS students at home at no-cost. An estimated 100,000 students lack access to high-speed internet in Chicago according to Census data. To narrow the digital divide for CPS families, Chicago Connected offers up to four years of high-speed internet for CPS families who are most in need.

In addition to the Chicago Connected program, the City of Chicago launched a free WiFi pilot in partnership with IGNITE Cities and Mesh++. The initiative was launched July 2020 in four wards of Chicago. IGNITE Cities is rolling out similar pilots in parts of Miami, New Orleans and Columbia. The pilot aimed to bring Internet access to students who are unable to access remote learning, and to families looking for employment and local COVID-19 assistance (Wray, 2020).

NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF AUTOMATION

Automation may bring many benefits such as saving money, generating revenue or increasing the health, safety and welfare of citizens; however, there are major problems associated with automation. The biggest negative externality: job loss.

Job Sectors Affected

It is estimated that up to 25% of tasks in manufacturing, packing, construction, maintenance, and agriculture could be cost-effectively automated by 2025; and up to 12% of tasks in food preparation, health care, commercial cleaning, and elder care could be performed by commercial-service robots by 2025 according to The McKinsey Global Institute (Manyika, 2013). This means the working class in high cost cities will be undercut significantly. Automation may eliminate many of the jobs above, pushing individuals out of the workforce and out of these cities (DuPuis, et al., 2016).

Workers Affected

Job disruption is more pronounced among workers with low education levels. Among workers with a high school diploma or less, the estimated loss of routine jobs and gain of interpersonal jobs is twice as large compared to the full sample. This means lower-educated workers are more likely to experience job displacement from automation. These numbers are driven by workers less than 30, minorities, and men with an especially large job loss prediction for less-educated minority workers (Casey, 2020). A McKinsey study overlaid racial representation over automation assessments of nearly 2,000 different detailed work activities in more than 800 occupations, and found that African American workers are disproportionately concentrated in the kinds of support roles most likely to be affected (Baboolall, et al., 2019).

Low-Income Workers Hit the Hardest

According to the Brookings Institute there are currently 36 million jobs that are “highly” susceptible to automation, the populations most vulnerable being low-income workers (Muro, et al., 2019; Muro, et al. 2020). The jobs lost to automation were predominantly those formerly held by the middle-class, contributing to what economists call “job polarization,” a phenomenon where there is job growth at the bottom (low-wage service jobs) and at the very top (high-paying jobs) (Anderson, 2015).

Automation and Recession

Financial problems, like the COVID-19 induced recession, help accelerate automation, compounding routine job loss. Every recession over the past 35 years resulted in the extinction of occupations. Specifically, 88 percent of all routine jobs lost since 1990 disappeared in the year immediately following a recession (Jaimovich & Siu, 2018). Lost jobs included routine physical jobs (e.g. forklift operators and welders) as well as cognitive white-collar jobs (e.g. bank tellers, secretarial work, money managers, and even dermatologists) (Anderson, 2015; Thomas, 2017). These jobs would have rebounded in the past, but they did not come back due to the new labor landscape brought on by automation.

Automation and COVID-19

The pandemic stands to cause significant and lasting shifts in the economy. Economists Jose Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Steven Davis and Brent Meyer provide a useful guide by examining questions and answers in the Atlanta Fed/Chicago Booth/Stanford Survey of Business Uncertainty, which includes responses from some 450 senior executives about their businesses and what they expect for the year ahead. The team concluded that Covid-19 will be “a persistent reallocation shock” (Orszag, 2021).

UNIONS AND AUTOMATION

James L. Stern’s 1963 paper “Automation — End or a New Day in Unionism?,” published in the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, states that: “Automation adversely affects unions by changing the nature of work and reducing the solidarity of the work group.” He continues by stating that, “union power is reduced by the erosion of the bargaining unit caused by the creation of the increased number of technical jobs outside of the traditional unit.”

Because of these issues U.S. labor unions have been forced to create a new playbook to defend the interests of their members. It is projected that by 2030, roughly 40 million U.S. workers, many of them union members, will be replaced by automation. Over the years unions have taken new approaches when dealing with issues pertaining to automation.

Collective Bargaining and Reskilling Programs

Unions are leaning heavily on traditional collective bargaining rights to reduce the impact of automation. The most common bargaining demand is for the retraining of union members for new jobs that emerge from the introduction of technology. Unions are also requesting advance notice of technology implementation, especially when the technology could lead to worker displacement (Quackenboss & Meisburg, 2020).

In addition, unions seek reskilling of their members to be able to operate the new technology as a part of their roles. By including language for reskilling programs in collective bargaining contracts, unions can help secure training for workers. This holds employers accountable and helps ensure that employees continue to have a place in the workforce. Unions can also work closely with employers to help facilitate the reskilling programs. Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Las Vegas gained a big win in 2018 by securing language to protect workers when employers bring in new technologies. For example: up to six months’ notice of new technology implementation that could lead to layoffs, free reskilling to use new technology, as well as access and free job training if any new jobs are created because of automation and technology (Green, 2019).

Collaboration Between Unions and Employers

Unions are making their case directly to the tech industry advocating that publicly funded research pursue technology goals and products that benefit union workers, and that labor representatives be included in initial concept discussions with the tech industry.

Advantages of Engaging Unions Early On

Employers may want to consider the advantages of union communication early on regarding technology implementation regardless of formal bargaining obligations. Understanding how the union may react and how they may be impacted by new technologies has its advantages. In addition, “if a dispute arises later about whether bargaining should be mandated, the employer’s good-faith efforts at collaboration will be meaningful in that analysis (Quackenboss & Meisburg, 2020).

Threat of Automation as a Recruiting Tool

Unions are using new technologies and the threat of automation as a campaign tool. Weaponizing workers’ concerns about job security, safety and privacy to promote the unions’ relevance, attract new members and win an organizing foothold in workplaces.

Sweden’s Job Security Councils

Trade unions from all over are studying the Swedish approach to workers displaced by automation. Sweden has created “job security councils” run by employers and trade unions. The councils look to support and retrain people as soon as they learn they are to be laid off. The system seems to work with about 90% of Sweden’s displaced workers re-employed within a year. France and Portugal’s re-employment is only 30%. Swedish businesses, who fund the councils, say the system is paying off because it means workers and unions are less resistant to necessary lay-offs allowing the economy to evolve more smoothly over time (O’Connor, 2018).

European View of Automation

Not everyone shares the Nordic unions’ positive outlook of ‘automation. The French have a much darker view since their unions are depleted and face a bigger task of needing to win new members in unfamiliar sectors and hold onto them. And the UK union workforce shrank in the decades after 1956 because the unions failed to replicate their membership levels in new and growing service sectors (O’Connor, 2018).

James L. Stern stated that, “although [the] considerations [of automation] make the task of the union more difficult, none of these pose insurmountable problems” (1963). And it’s important to remember, “we cannot uninvent new technology, but we can determine how it’s introduced, and who it stands to benefit” (O’Connor, 2018).

European Union 10-Year Digital Plan

The EU released a 10-year digital vision and plan in March 2021. tThe Commission’s vision for Europe’s digital transformation revolves around: (1) Skills, (2) Digital transformation of businesses, (3) Secure and sustainable digital infrastructures and (4) Digitalisation of public services. The Commission is aiming for digital transformation by 2030.

Tech Can Benefit Workers

It’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to technology. Unions use social media as a recruitment tool and according to the AFL-CIO’s Future of Work website, some unions are incorporating virtual reality into their apprenticeship programs and other unions are advocating for investments in exoskeleton technology to assist with safety. Technology can be a good thing.

Federal Labor Law Needs an Update

The National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act (min wage, who is an employee, etc) were written 100 years ago. Things have changed a lot since then. Back in the 1930’s employee’s knew who their boss was and bosses knew who their workers were. Now, with the gig economy, there’s a lot of grey area. It’s not the same. We need to update our labor laws on a national level.

In Chicago, Illinois the City Council passed the Fair Work Week Ordinance which requires certain employers to provide workers with predictable work schedules and compensation for changes. Employees are covered if they work in one of seven industries: Building Services, Healthcare, Hotels, Manufacturing, Restaurants, Retail, and Warehouse Services, if they make less than $26/hour or $50,000/year, and the employer has at least 100 employees globally (250 employees and 30 locations for a restaurant). Employees are granted an advance notice of work schedule (10 days), the right to decline previously unscheduled hours, 1 hour of Predictability Pay for any shift change within 10 days and the Right to Rest by declining work hours less than 10 hours after the end of the previous day’s shift (Elejalde-Ruiz, 2020).

Jobs Are Rearranged

“Jobs aren’t disappearing as much as they are being rearranged.” Don Villar, Secretary-Treasurer at the Chicago Federation of Labor. “We used to have a lot of camera operators at the NCAA March Madness events, but now a lot of those cameras are automated. It’s a double edged sword. Technology changed the media landscape and now there’s more jobs in writing, social media and other digital aspects.” This means we need more upskilling and more job training, apprenticeship and internship programs to ensure our workforce is ready for the jobs of tomorrow. “Employers and policy makers need to be truly committed to helping workers with developing these skills — that requires investment and some patience to make sure workers are not left behind,” he adds.

“What it comes down to is: we can’t be afraid of technology and we just need to make sure we don’t leave people behind. The best thing we can do is just keep training people on the latest techniques and equipment.” — Don Villar Secretary-Treasurer at the Chicago Federation of Labor

FUTURE PROOFING ILLINOIS

Preparing The Illinois Workforce For Automation

Millions of jobs in Illinois will feel the effects of automation in the coming decades. These jobs are transforming as automation engulfs more roles in the workplace. Illinois policymakers need to act now to help prepare for these changes. Ethan Pollack, policy director at The Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, says, “politicians are still not paying attention” to the negative effects of automation and “we’re going to be paying the cost for decades if we don’t act now” to prepare (Rockeman, 2020).

As automation increases occupations will continue to require higher levels of tech fluency, which means college credentials will be essential for most jobs in tomorrow’s economy. According to Statistical Atlas, 47.6% of Illinoians, aged 25 years or older, have only a high school degree. College degrees are out-of-reach for many low-income Illinois students (Partnershipfcc) seeing that about half of students eligible for need-based tuition via Illinois’ Monetary Award Program (MAP grant) didn’t receive funding due to insufficient state funding (2017). To add insult to injury, automation is going to affect the middle-and-lower-class (Anderson, 2015).

Policymakers and educators in Illinois need to ensure college is within reach of low-income students as they are the most susceptible to the effects of automation. Chaban (2018) states that this could affect retail workers because they “may need to manage Internet-connected point-of-sale and inventory management systems and build advanced customer profiles, while personal care workers may need to update client records using their smartphones or set up remote doctor visits via FaceTime.” The list below is borrowed from NYC’s Center for an Urban Future (Chaban, 2018) and National League of Cities’ “The Future of Work in Cities” report (DuPuis, et al, 2016).

Access To College

• Establish a statewide Student Success Fund. A fund like this would help empower schools to implement and expand programs that help students overcome barriers to earning a degree. There are several great nonprofits that tackle this issue (e.g., One Goal, Posse, etc.) and increased funding collaboration with them could go a long way.
• Investments in the college success programs that are already working. This could include increasing funding for low-income students that tackles the non-tuition barriers to college completion; as well as reforming Tuition Assistance Program rules to offer financial help to part-time students that apply. Chicago’s Star Scholarship is a great example.

Upskilling Programs

• Upskilling programs and investments in the state’s workforce development system. This can help to fund and scale up programs aimed at retraining workers for the jobs of the future by providing flexible funding to local workforce development organizations. Employers, business associations, educational institutions, and workforce providers need to work closely together at the local level to assess the changing needs of their regional economies. New programs should help mid-career workers learn new technical skills and earn industry-recognized credentials that will help them advance as employer demands shift. This means investing in a life-long learning program for all Illinois citizens to help them keep the jobs they have or to help them access new opportunities. The City of Chicago’s community colleges revamped their offerings a few years ago to tackle this. Some of the upskilling resources include: .techreadyillinois; dpi.uillinois; chicookworks; skillsforchicagolandsfuture; icstars; yearup; and catalyte.
• Aligning employer needs with skills-building organizations and educational institutions programs. Companies looking for workers with specific skill sets should invest in partnerships with workforce development providers and schools and by influencing their curricula. IBM’s P-TECH is slowly expanding and the model should be integrated into public schools statewide. It is a six-year high school that provides basic education training in fields such as tech and healthcare. IBM’s program has had great success securing students jobs right out of school. Illinois should expand apprenticeship programs in growing fields like healthcare, tech, advanced manufacturing, and the creative economy. The City Colleges were focused on building partnerships with companies so the schools would understand the necessary skills and pipeline to jobs. When the City Colleges overhauled they brought in the Civic Consulting Alliance to focus on building private sector partnerships in order to understand the necessary skills needed and pipeline to jobs.

Stem & Work-study

• Career exploration and work-study opportunities. Educators need to start early by giving hands-on career exploration and internships for middle school and high schools students. In the future economy, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability will be just as important to students as courses in STEM, and will help students learn to adapt to an ever changing workplace. One problem pertaining to hiring students from low income neighborhoods however, is that they need funds before they even start the internship for things like new clothes and money for transportation. They need money before they even get their first paycheck.

Social Safety Net

• Revamping the social safety net. In a world where more people will be working in contingent labor and many adults will need to balance work and family responsibilities with the need for additional training and education we need to rethink our current social safety net. It should be noted that increased automation and reduced low-paying service jobs have the potential to negatively affect a lot of people. Because of this we need an equitable safety net that means mandating things such as: paid leave, health insurance, workers compensation, fair retirement plans, and access to affordable childcare services.

It’s important to remember this isn’t all happening in a vacuum. Federal programs will be extremely helpful with lifting up workers in Illinois. There are federal programs aimed at helping workers adjust to economic shifts (e.g., trade adjustment assistance for off-shored jobs); however, the federal government should develop programs to include workers displaced by automation. The federal government should also help fund state and local programs pertaining to STEM and re-skilling programs.

There are several members of congress proposing bills to protect workers from Automation. TAA for Automation Act is legislation that would have supported workers who lost their jobs due to automation by expanding access to the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits (e.g., job training and reemployment services). The current TAA program provides support to workers who lose their jobs due to trade; however, workers displaced due to technological changes and automation receive zero access to these benefits. The bill was introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2019 but died in Congress.

Illinois Government And Automation

Government can manage a budget, but is less adept at meaningful performance management (e.g., tracking the success of the initiatives the budget is allocated to). Determining success measures is an art and requires the ability to collect data. Automation has the ability to wield technology to address problems old and new in order to adapt in real-time to problems, give government officials insight into how to fix a particular issue, increase the efficiency of government services, catch redundancies and save governments money. As Illinois officials are forced to do more with less, they will have to work smarter opposed to harder. One way of accomplishing this: Public-Private Partnerships.

Governments are not known for their ability to innovate, so why not partner with a business that does? There have been countless examples of governments partnering with the private sector to streamline their services, save money, generate revenue and increase the health, safety and welfare of citizens. Public-private partnerships should be the first step in making sure Illinois is future proof.

When it comes to automation, Illinois has been making strides over the past decade. Here are some ways Illinois is leading the pack and some ideas for future automation:

Services (Kiosks)

The State of Illinois is not currently using kiosks. The State could easily utilize automated kiosks for citizens to acquire their Real IDs and driver’s licenses, pay for permits, or pay bills. Large cities and smaller jurisdictions aren’t the only ones that have been utilizing digital kiosks, the private sector has been using them too. Sports venues have started incorporating them during CVOID-19 (Kaplan, 2021). There’s no reason the State shouldn’t do the same.

In addition, there might even be an opportunity for the State of Illinois to deploy mobile kiosks in areas that lack accessible mobility (e.g., mobility desert). The state could drop them off for weeks at a time to give citizens the opportunity to access state services they might not have had access to without it.

Services (Chatbots)

The Illinois Department of Employment Security partnered with Google to set up the virtual assistant and the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) has already gotten requests for virtual assistants from other state agencies (Kanowitz, 2021). Prior to that the DoIT hosted Chatbot hackathons in 2017, to encourage innovation and collaboration Sponsored by Microsoft, with teams of public and private-sector participants developing chatbot technologies (Wood, 2018).

Identification

The State of Illinois, like all other states in the U.S. are now required to offer Real IDs in order for citizens to use their licenses to board domestic flights and enter nuclear power plants and access federal buildings, like federal courthouses and military bases. Illinois started issuing Real IDs in compliance with the security standards set by the 2005 Real ID act (Schmid, 2020).

To innovate further, the Secretary of State should consider implementing a Digital ID option, an app allowing citizens to upload their license, registration and insurance for easy digital access as well as allow use for other state agencies and restaurants, bars, breweries and liquor stores. By incorporating the Digital ID app with the REAL ID, the app itself could be used to board a flight (Todd, 2021). The Secretary of State and Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) could also partner with Mastercard to incorporate a financial aspect to the card. Allowing citizens to receive financial assistance (e.g., unemployment or COVID funds) directly onto their state ID. The state could also attach benefits to the card for cultural institutions, sports teams, local businesses, and prescription drugs.

Blockchain

In 2017, the State of Illinois announced a Task Force, assembled to explore innovations presented by Blockchain and distributed ledger technology. The goal of the initiative was to determine if blockchain technology could be leveraged to create more efficient, integrated and trusted state services. The Task Force published the Illinois Procurement Bulletin (IPB) as well as a final report in February 2018 that summarized their findings.

The Task Force found that blockchain technology could facilitate highly-secure government paperless government services and records, increase data accuracy and provide better cybersecurity protections for residents. Their pilot programs were also talked about across the globe. The biggest benefit was to security as more and more Illinoisans lose time and money due to hacks of their personal data. Although the state has shifted their focus, blockchain should be something top of mind moving forward.

Energy (Streetlights)

ComEd replaced nearly 18,000 ComEd-owned streetlights with new smart-ready LED streetlights in more than 50 Illinois municipalities beginning in 2016 through ComEd’s Smart Ideas Energy Efficiency Program at no costs to municipalities. The benefits of these smart streetlights include: reducing energy usage and cost savings for municipalities; lights that last up to one-and-a half times longer. The smart-ready LED streetlights are connected to a digital smart controller linked to ComEd’s smart grid wireless network enabling two-way communications. This allows municipalities to remotely and instantaneously dim lights for energy savings, brighten or flash them for safety and sends notifications when a lamp needs maintenance (ComEd Media Relations, 2016).

Streetlights as streetlights is a waste of space. In order to innovate, the state could utilize their existing infrastructure, partner with municipalities and expand the Array of Things (AoT) project that was launched in 2016 in Chicago. The project consists of a network of sensor boxes mounted on light posts, that collects real-time data on Chicago’s environmental surroundings and urban activity. The data collected from AoT is accessible online through the City of Chicago’s data portal, providing valuable information for researchers, urban planners, and the general public in the hopes to improve the quality of life for residents and communities (Thronton, 2018). This technology should be implemented and utilized on the state level to improve the lives of citizens across our state.

​The Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT) is providing municipalities with turnkey options to upgrade street lighting systems for improved functionality and efficiency. A state master contract set of awards were given out in 2017 to three vendors: Johnson Controls, Globetrotters Engineering and TEN Connected Solutions. This tech includes LED luminaries, but also central management systems, backhaul communications networks and field devices.

Energy (Smart Grid)

Illinois began modernizing their energy grid in 2012. One of the important innovations included energy companies installing smart meters in homes and businesses helping to save customers millions of dollars on electricity bills each year. In addition, the state hoped to prevent thousands of outages each year by installing more stable utility poles making the grid safer and more reliable. Illinois’ smart grid is the second best in the nation, just behind California. Illinois also invested in thousands of smart switches, devices that reroute power in the event of a power surge, saving energy and keeping thousands of blackouts from happening each year. The grid’s updated technology has even farther-reaching benefits than cost savings and improved customer service by offering cleaner and more efficient energy (ThinkEnergy.com).

One of the ways Illinois can innovate in this space is by virtualizing the grid. Creating virtual power plants made up of distributed energy resources (DERs) can replace fossil-fueled power plants and enable cleaner, cheaper and more resilient grids. Grid operators will continue to struggle to balance supply and demand in real-time due to sporadic wind and solar power surges which displace conventional generators. Hybrid renewable plants with storage will help, but orchestrated DERs help with flexibility and boost resilience when weather is extreme (Atkinson & Sivaram, 2021).

“The best way for IL to ensure equitable, effective and efficient smart grid innovation is to actively sponsor outcome-driven, cross sector stakeholder engagement. Too often innovation is self serving within silos which diminishes societal benefit and overall potential success of solutions. “ — H.G. Chissell (Founder/CEO, AEG — Advanced Energy Group) But efforts to have an IL smartgrid have been questioned in recent years as several interest groups have begun to question the steep rise in ComEd profits (47% rise in profits over 8 years) and customer bills (37% rise in delivery portion of electric bills.) According to the Sun Times, in the eight years since the law took effect, the report says ComEd made about $2.5 billion in reliability upgrades and smart grid work as part of $5 billion in total capital spending in that period. And it got approval to pass along to consumers most of that spending, PIRG found, with only $23 million disallowed of the $5 billion it spent. An ongoing federal corruption investigation has been aimed at the political lobbying that allowed the bill to pass.

Mobility (Autonomous Vehicles)

In 2018, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner issued an executive order for the state’s Department of Transportation to initiate a statewide testing program for connected and autonomous vehicles by creating “Autonomous Illinois,” an initiative designed to keep IDOT on the forefront of emerging vehicle safety technologies. The initiative was designed to establish guidelines for testing the technology and sharing information among stakeholders (e.g., autonomous vehicle developers, researchers and state agencies) (Automotive Fleet Staff, 2018).

In 2018, Illinois House Representatives Michael J. Zalewski and Curtis J. Tarver, II co-sponsored the Autonomous Vehicle Act that would have allowed a fully autonomous vehicle to operate on state highways, regardless of whether a human operator is physically present in the vehicle. The law states that when engaged, the automated driving system would be considered the driver “for purposes of assessing conformance to applicable traffic or motor vehicle laws.” However, the bill was re-referred to the House Rules Committee on 3/29/2019 and hasn’t been brought up since (Greenfield, 2019).

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker launched a project in February 2020, to frame the future of mobility in Illinois by bringing together IDOT, DCEO, and over 130 other private and public sector partners, but the Governor has been clear about his cautious stance (Miller, 2019).

“We certainly need to be careful about the implementation, the utilization of driverless vehicles. They’re not ready today. They’re not ready today. And I know that the tests that I’ve seen have been imperfect at best. And so we’re going to have to wait and see. This is not something that we’re going to authorize sometime soon in the State of Illinois” — J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois

Although Illinois lacks the private sector CAV companies, political impetus, testing facilities, and climate to attract CAV pilots; the state can remain competitive by embracing a “fast follower” approach of CAV technologies, adopting the best practices emerging from other states. (Lavey & Zegas, 2020).

Mobility (Tollways)

Illinois tollways will no longer accept cash. In 2019, 92% of tolls collected from drivers came from I-PASS and EZ-Pass transponders. Drivers without transponders can pay tolls on the tollway website within 14 days without penalty (Gudas, 2021).

Moving into the future, the State of Illinois may want to consider how this technology impacts the unbanked. Not everyone has access to the internet and not everyone is able to navigate state websites in order to pay bills.

The state may also want to incorporate technology like the City of Norfolk, Va. who built sensors in the road that will know whether a vehicle has more than two axles so the city knows how to charge the driver the higher for a “heavy vehicle” toll rate. However, the system is not smart enough yet to recognize if someone is pulling a boat or trailer, which could have a different charge (Forster, 2014).

Telehealth

Governor Pritzker announced the State of Illinois’ telehealth initiative COVID-19 Virtual Care Program in 2020. The program serves to reduce barriers to physical and mental health services in all communities for those who do not have a primary care physician no matter the income level with special focus on underserved populations and those most at risk during this pandemic. The program features remote patient monitoring to citizens potentially infected with COVID-19, so they can recover from the safety of their homes. The care includes COVID-19 virtual screenings, virtual visits, and remote patient monitoring. Once enrolled, pandemic health workers will digitally connect with patients when they are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms but do not require emergency or inpatient care. Patients will receive remote patient monitoring including daily virtual visits or check-ins and may receive wellness kits that include crucial items like thermometers, pulse oximeters, blood pressure cuffs, alcohol wipes, and masks.

Moving forward, Post-COVID-19, wearable devices will become increasingly more useful when monitoring the health of constituents. Telehealth will continue to expand due to technology like Wearable ECG monitors, Wearable Blood Pressure Monitors, and Biosensors (Phaneuf, 2021).

For those that will scream “privacy issues!” Don’t worry, Illinois is already prepared for any privacy issues that may occur pertaining to the sharing of biometric data. “The Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA)” was passed in 2008 and regulates the collection of biometric information (i.e., fingerprints, retina and facial geometry scans) and allows individuals to file a lawsuit for damages if a violation transpires like not securely storing biometric data, not obtaining consent for data collection and not destroying biometric identifiers in a timely manner (Anderson-Hall, et al., 2020).

“As telehealth becomes more widely adopted, [we] will see more women in the healthcare workforce. The ability to work remotely and from home will enable more women to stay in the workforce, as opposed to leaving jobs because of family obligations, when women disproportionately drop out of the workforce versus men. [We] will also see a lot of new jobs created in IT infrastructure, security and compliance. Telehealth will also play a key role, as physicians connect with each other virtually during procedures as well as industry professionals virtually connecting into procedures to provide education and case support.” — Jennifer Fried, Chief Executive Officer of Explorer Surgical

Emergency (Response)

The state of IL has integrated AI already into several of its emergency response systems. The city is using Shotspotter, an acoustic gunshot detection program (that evolved from earthquake sensor technology) that reduces 911 call times by alerting police automatically when it acoustically senses a gunshot via outdoor sound sensors. Sensors within AGDs are very sophisticated, and can tell police where shots were fired, the number of shooters in an area, the type of weapon, and whether they are from a moving vehicle.

Expressway shootings have also increased in Chicago this year, leading to a call for better camera technology to spot license plates in key expressway areas.

Emergency (Flood Management)

Flood management has recently seen impact from automation. According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, almost 15% of the total land area in Illinois is subject to flooding due to their large inland systems of rivers, lakes and streams. In addition, over 250,000 buildings are located in floodplains of Illinois and unwise development in or near floodplains further increases property damage and potential loss of life from flooding. As climate change increases and wreaks more and more havoc on the United States it’s important for the State of Illinois to continue to develop and expand flood risk reduction initiatives and innovations.

Seeing that this particular natural disaster poses the greatest threat to Illinois citizens, Illinois should continue to use data to help constituents understand the risks and of flood zones. In addition, we recommend the state develop interactive tools, like Louisiana, to help residents to visualize how their community will be affected by various climate change and flooding scenarios over the next 50 years will be extremely helpful (Gardner, 2019).

Elections (Security)

In June of 2016, Illinois saw a breach of the state’s voter database by Russian hackers. 21 other states reported being hit, but Illinois’ data breach was by far the most significant. Since then efforts to prevent future hacking ranged from hiring internet security specialists to making plans to buy new polling machines. Illinois spent millions to upgrade the cyber defenses protecting voters and their ballots leading up to the 2020 election (Pearson, 2019). The state created a Cyber Navigator program, which makes experts available to election jurisdictions to help them allocate new dollars to achieve a better security posture. For example, new penetration testing capabilities deployed by DHS in 2018 and 2019 can remotely identify security vulnerabilities in election systems without having to deploy field teams to a targeted state or jurisdiction (Johnson, 2019).

The Brennan Center’s Toolkits for Activists Across the Nation suggests Illinois could step up their election innovation by focusing on these changes to our election practices to ensure our elections are safe and accessible to all. Recommendations include: statewide online tool for requesting a vote-by-mail ballot; provide pre-paid postage for voting by mail; sending absentee-ballot applications to all voters who have not yet applied; and increasing access to curbside voting at polling locations.

There’s still more our state could be doing to automate this system for example: ensuring all registered voters automatically receive a ballot in the mail before every primary and general election; allow voters to use the phone to resolve rejections of ballots for possible signature problems via text and photograph and confirming the handwriting and the person wielding the pen are authentic (Theobald, 2020). Implementing these changes will not only result in increased turnout, but they will also save our state money.

Note that elections are administered locally and the federal government and state can help support their security as well.

Telework

The State of Illinois transition to telework was relatively easy because they had 3,000 staffers prior to the pandemic working from home (out of 50,000+ state desktop users). Discussions about incorporating telework planning started as early as March 2020, and state agencies were already talking operations plans and taking inventory of hardware/laptops, data usage, and call center capabilities (Westrope, 2020).

Moving forward the State of Illinois might consider allowing more flexible teleworking options. This could cut down on operations costs (e.g., renting facilities like offices, etc.).

Virtual House Sessions

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed Public Act 101–640, on Friday, June 12, which amends the Open Meetings Act and allows public bodies to hold virtual board meetings without the physical presence of a majority of a quorum of members during a disaster declaration relating to public health concerns like COVID-19 (Brian Crowley, et al, 2020).

COVID-19 severely limited legislative action since March 2020 forcing the Legislature to cancel most of its time in Springfield. Illinois lawmakers will be working remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic for the spring 2021 session. The Illinois Senate announced on February 2nd, 2021, that it will convene in committees by video conference. The Illinois House, on the other hand, had scheduled nine work days for February 2021, but only one where members could work remotely. Earlier this year, the Senate adopted rules that allowed lawmakers to participate remotely if there’s a quorum present. A similar plan failed in the House (NBC Chicago, 2020).

Virtual meetings are the new normal. The future will go a step beyond: hologram or virtual reality House session. It may sound far fetched, but I don’t think anyone 50 years ago would have thought we’d be launching virtual governance across the U.S. while a pandemic ravaged our nation.

Social Media

Social media as a tool to share press releases and meeting announcements does not inspire citizens engagement. Agencies need to get creative with their social media presence by creating authentic content with a human touch, sharing videos that engage and inform, and commiting to a consistent posting schedule (Cathers, 2018).

Governor Pritzker and Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch are statewide elected officials that are very active on all social media outlets and multiple State of Illinois departments do a good job of posting information and announcements.

Two things the State of Illinois could do to up their social media game is to (1) host live online town halls and (2) have a citizen engagement site that is active and responsive. The State of Illinois could also benefit from some out-of-the-box thinking (ala AOC) in order to engage citizens in a novel way. It’s difficult imagining Governor Pritzker joining Twitch, but crazier things have happened!

Broadband and WiFi

Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) owns and manages the Illinois Wireless Information Network (IWIN) through a contractual partnership between the State of Illinois, Verizon Wireless, and Motorola. The network provides fast, reliable and secure wide area data network to Federal, State, County and local government wireless users within Illinois who require mobile communications. IWIN is the largest mobile data network in the country with over 5,000 units and 12,000 users spanning more than 400 communities. The State of Illinois can take it one step further: implement free public WiFi. This might be one of the most obvious and easy “wins” the state can have in the early race to automation.

We are already behind a number of states in this area. Google is setting up 100,000 WiFi access points across the State of California to increase broadband access for students. The State of California’s partnership with Google comes at a time when millions of students are grappling with how to implement digital learning amid stay-at-home orders (Canales, 2020). But this kind of installation is not without risk for some cities. Google Fiber, Alphabet’s gigabit broadband service, started a relationship with Louisville for city WIFI in 2015. The idea was to bring ultrafast internet speeds to Kentucky’s largest city. There was a two-year delay in implementation, but thing began to look promising. But in February of 2020, Google Fiber announced plans to turn it off, making Louisville (one of only 19 cities to get Google Fiber since its launch in 2010,) a city with unused fiber installations all over its roads.

Chicago has leaped ahead in one area: its students. Chicago Connected is a groundbreaking program that provides no-cost, high-speed internet service to CPS students and their families. This first-of-its-kind program will be one of the largest efforts by any city to provide internet access for students. Through partnerships with businesses, community groups, governments and philanthropic organizations, Chicago Connected is responding to an opportunity to eliminate a barrier to digital learning that disproportionately hurts the city’s low‐income families and students of color. The program has 40k subscribers and 35 community organizations on board.

Fiber is an easy political win with citizens, if a city can afford it and implement it painlessly. “When people first saw electricity first saw electricity in the streets of the United States, they fell to their knees, it was so astonishing. And fiber is equally astonishing. (Professor Susan Crawford, 2019.) But building out WIFI will rely on building out our fiber infrastructure. If we are leasing from third parties, this is far from free. How can we pay for this when we are struggling financially? America may miss the fiber revolution because giant corporations that control cable and internet access in the United States use formidable lobbying power against competition, holding back the infrastructure improvements necessary to get ahead.

Cities that care about their citizens will implement this change, period. “There is a correlation between places that can care for everyone (via WIFI) and pivoting to take on questions of life workforce development, better health for poor people, and equal education” states Susan Crawford in a 2019 talk at Harvard. Not providing WIFI for citizens is a “failure of leadership and imagination.” (Professor Susan Crawford, 2019.)

THE CRITICAL NATURE OF DATA

The biggest thing we have not yet dug into is data. Cities that want to “win” in the area of automation will begin prioritizing data and data-driven processes now. Determining success measures is an art and requires the ability to collect data and interpret it well (see Statestat introduced by Governor O’Malley as a good example). 85% of American adults have internet access. 56% own a smartphone. “Google” is a verb, dictionaries are crowdsourced online and everyone’s a journalist. It’s a time of unprecedented openness and reliance on government systems, but also one defined by the user and the user’s convenience. Tech like cloud storage, APIs and AI-based software have already transformed certain governments. Take CompStat in NYC. Before NYPD thought to cross-references crime maps with police department resource maps, they assumed that crime was evenly distributed across the city. So, they distributed resources all over the city too. When they began to understand that crime was targeted to certain areas, their ability to send resources there and stop it became legendary.

For example, the CompStat team in NYC had cross-referenced crime maps with police department resource maps and uncovered a glaring disparity: crime-fighting resources were evenly distributed, but crime wasn’t. By being smarter about dispatching departmental resources, NYC’s leadership was able to clean up the city significantly. Governor Martin O’Malley’s StateStat program was able to consolidate data around hunger in Baltimore and pinpoint that school meals were the lynchpin to fighting hunger in the city. No new data collection was needed in this case. The data was there. It just had not been combined and analyzed.

Various champions have emerged for data-driven government in the last decade. Bloomberg Philanthropies, founded by former Mayor Bloomberg in NYC, believes that using data to inform decision-making is essential to running a city. The organization has influenced work within 810 cities and in 170 countries. In cities across the United States, mayors lack the tools and staff to use data and evidence to improve how governing gets done. By providing robust technical support, access to expertise, and peer-to-peer learning to cities, Bloomberg Philanthropies is helping cities to better use data and evidence to engage the public, improve services, evaluate progress, and make sound investment decisions. Los Angeles Innovates is committed to creating long lasting and data driven change in LA and onwards. Their i-team, which is an extension of the Bloomberg Philanthropies work, functions as an in-house city government consultancy for innovative solutions across areas like housing, COVID-19 response, gender equity, LAPD innovations and more.

Data cannot be shunted in government to the side when making decisions. This is no “side project.” It needs to be central to everything the government does, guiding the best responses in the most timely manner.

CONCLUSION

So to sum up the biggest thoughts in this paper; automation is not coming; it’s here. While it can be scary, it helps to understand what AI is. AI is not an answer in itself. It must have a human hand guiding it and human intelligence controlling it to work. And jobs are not going away with the advancement of AI — but they will be redesigned across the grid. Savvy leaders have huge opportunities to create massive paradigm shifts in living with changes like fiber infrastructure and city-wide WIFI. But they must prioritize data, and make it the center of their decisions, not a side thought.

Author Zadie Smith says “Progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated and reimagined if it is to survive.” Disruption is the key to stability, ironically. Let’s be the ones to choose our response to the sea change that is coming, before our response is made (automated) for us.

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