Equipping future public service leaders with AI literacy

Over the past few decades, technological breakthroughs have repeatedly reshaped how we live and work, from the personal computer to the internet. While each innovation was initially met with skepticism regarding market disruption and job loss, they ultimately became embedded in everyday life, transforming industries and redefining people’s expectations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) now stands at a similar crossroads, with one critical difference: the pace of advancement is faster, and the stakes feel higher. For Arkansas’s public service leaders, business innovators, and nonprofit professionals, the question is no longer whether AI will shape our work, but whether our leaders will know how to use it responsibly and strategically.

That urgency is why Dean Victoria DeFrancesco Soto of the Clinton School of Public Service tasked us, along with colleagues Drs. Songkhun Nillasithanukroh and Andreas Sihotang, to create the new course, AI in Public Service. She realized that preparing tomorrow’s leaders requires more than traditional policy analysis and management skills. We must ensure they possess the digital fluency required to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape.

The focus of our course is not about replacing human judgment or eliminating jobs. Instead, it’s about enhancing leaders’ capacity to serve their communities more effectively. From reducing administrative burdens in state agencies to expanding access to services in rural Arkansas, AI presents an opportunity to make government and organizations more efficient and responsive if leaders understand the promise of this new technology and its potential risks.

Our goal is not to turn students into engineers but to develop AI-skilled leaders. These professionals need to understand how these tools work and where caution is needed. By grounding students in ethical frameworks, data security and real-world applications, we ensure that Clinton School graduates are equipped to lead organizations through technological transitions rather than reacting to them. We are using Ethan Mollick’s New York Times bestseller, “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI,” as a primary text because it offers a practical framework for working alongside AI rather than fearing it.

Throughout the course, students will use AI to evaluate real public-sector cases, assess risks related to bias and data security, debate the ethical implications of AI and practice integrating tools into different scenarios.

They learn to ask better questions of AI systems, verify outputs, and apply AI in ways that improve the communities they serve. Students will also engage with guest speakers whose expertise ranges from national security to workforce development and groups like AI in the Rock, a working group of professionals sharing findings on the latest developments in the field.

For rural and underserved communities in Arkansas, the implications of AI are especially significant. Rather than replacing local expertise, these tools can allow leaders to spend more time on the human side of service, including relationship-building, strategic planning and direct services to the people they serve. In a state where rural communities are the backbone of our civic and economic life, equipping the public service leaders of tomorrow with AI literacy is a pathway to a more responsive and resilient workforce.

By integrating this expertise into our curriculum, we are ensuring that Clinton School graduates are equipped to help agencies modernize operations, nonprofits expand capacity and organizations adapt responsibly to this evolving landscape. The impact of this course will be reflected in stronger institutions, more efficient service delivery, and a new generation of Arkansas leaders prepared to guide their communities through the next era of change.

Editor’s note: Dr. Robert Richards Jr. is an associate professor and director of the Open Governance Laboratory at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. Pipa Pipa is a Master of Public Service candidate at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service who serves as the graduate assistant for the first AI in Public Service course at the Clinton School.