MMA holds first AI webinar of series

The MMA kicked off its artificial intelligence webinar series on Feb. 11 with an introductory session featuring Kevin Gulley and Brendan McShreffrey of the Kendall Project, a Massachusetts-based company that helps organizations develop clarity, shared language, and operating foundations in order to use AI safely and effectively.

The first principle of the Kendall Framework is that “context is king,” Gulley said. The framework defines context as the “data and background information provided to an AI model, enabling it to understand user intent, so that it can generate accurate, useful outputs.”

McShreffrey shared the principle that “problems fuel AI,” since it is designed to solve, not search.

“Problems are almost like fingerprints,” he said. “One person’s problem is never exactly the same, person-to-person. So, when you want AI to solve problems as a team, you want to describe problems as a team, creating a combined articulation that creates problem lucidity.”

McShreffrey recommended using the open-ended statement, “How might we …” to explain a problem because it emphasizes collaboration and introduces possibility.

The webinar is the first in the MMA’s series on artificial intelligence. The other two sessions will cover municipal use cases and creating an AI policy.

MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine moderated 10 minutes of questions and answers, addressing inquiries regarding the potential environmental impacts of AI use, transferring data across different systems, and advice for using data inaccessible to the AI agent.

• Kendall Framework Role Worksheet Super-Prompt for ChatGPT (135K PDF)