City's AI lead shares knowledge with ABmunis

Kris Andreychuk, who manages the City of Edmonton's applied AI program, shared some lessons learned the hard way in a talk at the Alberta Municipalities convention. "There's an opportunity to learn where the city flopped, where we fell on our face, but most importantly, what we learned from that, what we did as a result, and how we prepared in the future," he told municipal leaders from across the province on Sept. 23 at the Edmonton Convention Centre. The key, said the former social worker with a rich history of municipal service, is to start every project with a well-defined problem, a willing stakeholder, a clear picture of what will change, and a sense of comfort when dealing with the unexpected.

Andreychuk shared three case studies that helped teach him those lessons. The first was when he tried a tool called Exposure that scraped Backpage for "body rub" listings to help outreach workers find people who might need assistance. Almost immediately, the team picked up a posting by a minor that could have constituted criminal possession of child sexual abuse material. An emergency interdepartmental meeting ensued, and the team was advised to lawyer up, though the matter was ultimately resolved. "It was the most terrifying and exhilarating day of my career," Andreychuk said of the incident, which took place before he became program lead. "I hope it never happens again." The police took over the project, but it died when Backpage was shut down. The second case study involved Symbol Smart, an image detection application designed to identify hate symbols. The departments who could use it couldn't decide which of them should, Andreychuk said. Third, the team did work on used needle collection from public bins, including cost-saving route optimization for pickups, which seemed like a success — at first. "They didn't have the heart to tell us that they thought the routes were dumb," he said.

One tool that didn't come up in his talk was Unison, which maps incident reports for social agencies and the city. That's because it's been a success, he told Taproot after his talk. The team is gearing up to release an upgrade that includes mobile functionality. Edmonton's applied AI division has completed 77 projects, with 50 in various stages of the queue. One happening soon is aimed at reducing workforce injuries. Edmonton has long been considered a leader in AI adoption, and Andreychuk said his door is open if other municipalities would like to learn more. He shared more about his work on CBC's Edmonton AM.