Mayor Mahan seeks to use AI to combat San Jose's biggest problems

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is hoping artificial intelligence will help in combating homelessness, among other issues the city faces.

Mahan was one of 23 mayors that attended a Johns Hopkins University summit on how AI can potentially improve cities.

“AI [could] help predict, for example, things like where traffic is going to be, where improvements can be made,” he said. “[It could] automate a service request and get the response out faster. Spend less of our staff time fielding the calls and lodging all the complaints, and more of our time solving problems.”

The summit was sponsored by the Bloomberg Philanthropy City Data Alliance, which provides coaching and money to Mahan and his staff.

The mayor added that he hopes the technology will help tackle problems locally.

Ben Parr, co-founder of Octane AI, said the technology definitely has the potential to make improvements in large cities like San Jose.

“In the end, AI is just a way to more efficiently understand large amounts of data, and then use it in more efficient ways.” Parr said.