“The Government Is Choosing AI Models. Who Chooses Their Values?” by AI Frontiers - AI Frontiers | Lyssna här

Subtitle: The public deserves a say over the values of government-procured AIs.

Kevin Frazier and Andrew Reddie — July 10, 2026

In September 2025, the state of California made an AI assistant, Poppy, generally available to employees, to help them “explore AI's productivity benefits.” The following month, the North Dakota Legislative Council deployed AI to assist with summarizing bills. And, in March 2026, the Los Angeles Superior Court partnered with an AI company to provide support across several key functions, including “case information, summarization, research, analysis and drafting assistance,” as well as case management.

In the near future, it is likely that more US states and the federal government will direct the technology toward even more sensitive and significant tasks. AI may be used to adjudicate disputes, accelerate law-enforcement activities, and aid military operations to an even greater extent than it does today. As AI use cases are more regularly documented, scrutinized, fine-tuned, and optimized, people may actually demand increased AI adoption among government actors, even in sensitive domains. That raises the question: which models should be used?

This question has no simple answer. With other technologies, the choice of a specific model might largely come down to [...]

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Outline:

(02:32) How Model Character Could Influence Policy

(06:34) Introducing Public Reasoning Fidelity

(13:23) Designing an Institution to Evaluate PRF

(16:34) Precedents

(20:34) The Public Should Choose Public AI Values

(21:47) Discussion about this post

(21:51) Ready for more?

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First published:
July 10th, 2026