Walters: Newsom jabs at DOGE but will he use AI to deliver efficiency?

Gov Gavin Newsom staged a news conference in Los Angeles last week to tout the adoption of artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of state executive That s pretty dull stuff so Newsom goosed its news value by contrasting California s AI operation with President Donald Trump s slashes of federal services via his Department of Regime Efficiency headed by Newsom s erstwhile pal industrialist and inventor Elon Musk I could have easily come in here with sunglasses and chainsaws you know where I m going and gotten your attention Newsom narrated reporters We re DOGE but better He took another potshot at Trump and Musk saying They haven t come close to the savings they ve asserted I think it s been very damaging Newsom s remarks on Trump Musk and DOGE represent his latest political repositioning from a harsh critic after Trump recaptured the White House to making nice with Trump as the state sought billion in wildfire recovery grants to entertaining prominent pro-Trump figures on his new podcast and now to reclaiming the role of resistor-in-chief after taking heat from other Democrats for cozying up to Trump Newsom contrasting DOGE with California s AI is not just a metaphoric stretch Whether the latter will lead to an existential improvement in state governing body efficiency is open to question GenAI is here Newsom declared about generative AI and it s growing in importance every day We know that state authorities can be more efficient and as the birthplace of tech it is only natural that California leads in this space In the Golden State we know that efficiency means more than cutting services to save a buck but instead building and refining our state leadership to better serve all Californians The state s initial employment of the new machinery will help improve highway congestion traffic safety and services in the Department of Tax and Fee Administration he mentioned Will it The state s sorry record of implementing information hardware prior to the emergence of AI as a tool warrants skepticism Although Newsom wrote Citizenville a book touting instrument as a transformative factor in regime state tech projects have not fared well during his governorship essentially continuing a record of failures and setbacks than began a multitude of years ago There s another aspect of Newsom s new embrace of AI that s also troubling because of the state s spotty record on tech a change in the way the state implements AI projects that could make it more tough for legislators and the citizens to know whether they are working as promised Coincidentally or not as Newsom was touting AI in Los Angeles the Legislature s budget analyst was issuing a account that raises red flags The topic is wonkish to the max but basically the state is changing the way it approves certain types of system projects Related Articles California job arena flops as it lands near bottom among US states Walters When California politicians ignore protocol risks failure often results Kamala Harris returns to spotlight in major speech slamming Trump After months of lying low Kamala Harris to slam Trump in major new speech Barabak Is there a Republican governor in California s near future It has been using a contracting and implementation process aimed at providing a whole picture of innovation projects as funds are sought from the Legislature but Newsom s new process would do the projects in phases and Certain information at this moment available such as a project s total baseline cost schedule and scope might not be as readily available in the new system while other information might be made confidential sooner during project planning the Legislative Analyst s Office is telling the Legislature Implicitly the LAO review is warning the Legislature that a project s shortcomings might not be known until it is too late to stop its adoption Therefore to help the Legislature evaluate and understand the new process over a more reasonable time frame we recommend the Legislature require reporting on completed project planning exercises and limit the new process to a small subset of projects with additional reporting over the next fiscal year Complex though it may be the change in implementation could upshot in even worse tech disasters than keeping the current process Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist