Welcome to The Newsfeed.

This week we've been telling you about a group of randomly selected residents in Snohomish County who spent three weeks researching artificial intelligence together.

They work to write recommendations for how the county should be using it, in hopes they'll be implemented.

Cascade PBS and KNKX Reporter Nate Sanford tells us more about what they determined.

- 2.5: The county shall, when using AI to respond to constituent email, indicate that the response is AI generated.

- The so-called civic assembly process took place over three weekends this spring.

In the last of six meetings, participants voted on the recommendations they came up with together.

Each needed an 80% majority to be passed on to the county council for consideration.

- The recommendation passes.

- Of the more than 50 recommendations, the group approved 35 with strong support.

Some examples.

The group agreed the county should ensure humans are always the final decision makers.

disclose when AI is used to respond to emails and publicize an AI data safety plan.

They also recommended the county make it clear to residents any time they're interacting with an AI communication system, and give residents legal recourse if their data is leaked.

One of the biggest recommendations is the creation of a new AI human oversight board, composed of technical experts, community members and county employees.

County Council member Jared Mead says he and his colleagues probably won't be able to adopt all the recommendations, but he hopes to pass as many as possible.

- You put a policy out there, it's bound to get churned and ammended and moved and whatever.

So I don't know exactly what it's going to look like at the end of this, but I would consider it a disappointment if we just look at these policy recommendations and file them away, as we'll get to that eventually.

- Mead says he knows some county staff have experimented with AI, but there's still a lot of information he lacks.

- I don't think most elected officials, including myself, have even close to an idea of the concept of how it's being used right now in government, which is why I think something like this is so important.

- Most participants say they think the final set of recommendations represents a good middle ground between caution and optimism.

- I think what we've come to consensus on encompasses a lot of people's, worries and fears and pushes things, more towards, I want to say, a cutting edge, policy that's really going to help the government.

- Some participants voiced concerns that the county council may not take their recommendations seriously.

Some also wished they could have done more during the process.

Jessica Rhodes says she felt like the structure of the civic assembly was too narrow.

She wishes the group had been allowed to spend more time on issues like the environmental impact of AI.

- They have been very dismissive about all of our environmental concerns.

And every time someone brings up a concern, they're like, ‘Well, we're talking about this subject, so let's get back on point.

- The civic assembly organizers say they have to balance keeping conversations on track, while also allowing participants to express themselves freely.

- We have what we call the remit which is the specific question that we're trying to answer.

This is what we're trying to give the county council guidance on.

So we want to make sure that we're focused on that.

- Youngblood says the final recommendations are a good representative look at how people are feeling about AI.

- I really think that what came out of the Snohomish County Civic Assembly can be a blueprint for other communities.

And I heard from the very beginning and throughout the process that the conversations we were having at this assembly really reflected the national conversation on this issue.

- I think that this is a model that we hopefully can be implementing in our county through the future.

- The county council plans to consider the recommendations in the coming weeks.

Nate Sanford, Cascade PBS.

- To see our full week of coverage on the civic assembly process in Snohomish County.

Visit CascadePBS.org/TheNewsfeed I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching.