Did you know that government agencies and nation-states produce enormous amounts of data every day? According to a study by IDC, the world will produce 175 zettabytes of data by 2025.
However, as the government will be responsible for managing, storing, and using a big chunk of this data, it has to ensure the data is properly analyzed and shared. Due it the sheer size of the data, it can be challenging for government apparatuses to operate on the data, make sense of a lot of information and get it across to people.
This is where Natural Language Generation (NLG) comes in, filling the gap between raw data and utilizing them to revolutionize processes.
In this piece, let's take a look at the exciting world of NLG and see how it is changing the way the government works in many different areas, from how it serves citizens to how it makes decisions.
Enhancing Government Operations: 10 Powerful Applications of Natural Language Generation (NLG)
Automated Report Generation
Reporting is a crucial undertaking in the governmental arena, necessitating substantial investment of both time and resources. Conventional methods of report preparation are notoriously labor-intensive and time-consuming. The advent of Natural Language Generation (NLG), however, revolutionized the process of automatic report creation.
According to a study by McKinsey & Company, government employees typically dedicate 20% of their working hours to information retrieval and analysis, all in the pursuit of informed decision-making. NLG proposes an innovative solution, automating report generation and enabling government entities to swiftly extract insights from complex data sets and convert them into digestible narratives.
One salient advantage of NLG is the improvement in the precision and consistency of automated reports. Human errors in data interpretation and manual report generation are markedly reduced, ensuring the provision of reliable and accurate information to policymakers and stakeholders. This is particularly critical in governmental circles where data-driven decisions are instrumental in effective policy-making and resource allocation.
An illustrative case in point is the U.S. Department of Labor, which successfully implemented NLG to automate its unemployment records. Thanks to NLG technology, what used to take days to compile, now merely requires a few minutes. This drastic reduction in turnaround time provided legislators with real-time insights into employment trends, thereby enabling more timely and effective policymaking to address public needs.
In addition to enhancing efficiency and accuracy, NLG fosters transparency and accountability in government. By transforming raw data into understandable narratives, NLG allows governmental departments to communicate their actions, achievements, and outcomes in a more comprehensible and accessible manner. This has the added benefit of demystifying governmental procedures and decisions to the general public, thereby fostering increased trust in governmental institutions.
Policy and Legislation Drafting
Policy and legislation drafting is a complex task that demands meticulous attention to detail and rigorous adherence to legal frameworks. Natural Language Generation (NLG) has emerged as a transformative tool in the governmental domain, streamlining this critical function and enhancing overall efficiency.
A study conducted by the National Conference of State Legislatures reveals that an average state assembly reviews thousands of bills annually. The process of drafting these bills is a time-intensive endeavor necessitating comprehensive research, analysis, and in-depth legal acumen. NLG simplifies this process by autonomously generating policy drafts and legislative proposals based on pre-established rules and models.
NLG software possesses the capacity to scan vast repositories of legal intelligence, including laws, regulations, and historical court rulings. Extracting relevant insights from these data sources, NLG can craft detailed drafts that align with legislative norms and policy objectives. This not only conserves time for governmental agencies but also ensures consistency and accuracy in the drafting process.
Furthermore, NLG facilitates collaborative efforts and reduces bottlenecks in policy and legislation creation. With NLG-enabled platforms, diverse stakeholders like legislators, legal professionals, and subject matter experts can effectively collaborate. These platforms foster real-time collaboration, track version history, and seamlessly integrate varying inputs. This accelerates the decision-making process and fosters more efficient operations.
A notable example of NLG application in law-making is the European Commission. They've leveraged NLG algorithms to automatically generate synopses and interpretations of legislative proposals. This has significantly truncated the time needed to draft and enact laws, thereby enabling legislators to promptly address emerging issues.
Open Data Narratives
The idea of "open data" is that some information should be free for anyone to access, use, and share. In the government sector, attempts to share open data are gaining steam. States are sharing huge amounts of data to make the government more open, responsible, and innovative. Natural Language Generation (NLG) is becoming a useful tool for making easy-to-understand stories from this data.
Open data is usually made up of large with datasets of information. But most people may not be able to understand raw data on its own. NLG fills this gap by researching and making sense of open data to make stories that explain the numbers and give context, insights, and stories.
Using NLG, government organizations can turn hard-to-understand statistics into interesting stories that are easy to understand. For example, NLG algorithms can assess unemployment rates, economic factors, and population data to make reports and stories that show trends, patterns, and how government policies affect different parts of society. The public can then find out about these stories through government websites, social media, and other ways of getting information out.
NLG also lets government agencies use data to tell stories that work for different groups. For example, NLG algorithms can make stories in more than one language or change how hard they are depending on how much the audience knows. This makes sure that open data stories are available to a wide range of people, no matter where they come from or how much they know.
The New York City Open Data website is a great example of how NLG can be used to tell stories about open data. People can find plenty of information on the site about travel, schools, health, and public safety, among other things. NLG technology is used to turn this data into stories that describe important trends, problems, and changes in the city.
This makes the data easier to understand and more interesting to read. These stories give people the tools they need to study and understand the facts, which helps them understand the city's problems and opportunities better.
Citizen Service Chatbots
Serving the public, chatbots are virtual assistants that use a technology called Natural Language Generation (NLG) to connect with people and give them information, help, and support. These chatbots are made to talk like people and help people find their way around government services, answer questions, and get personalized help.
By adding NLG to computer systems, government agencies can make their services to people more useful and faster. Chatbots that use NLG can understand and process what people say, make responses that sound like they came from a real person, and give true and useful information. This lets people get the services they need without needing much manual intervention or having to wait for a long time.
Robots that are run by NLG can answer a wide range of questions and requests, which makes them great helpers. These robots can answer simple questions about government schemes, who is eligible, and how to apply. NLG lets robots change how they answer based on what the user wants. Every encounter is different and helps.
Robots that are run by NLG could help with things like paperwork, applications, and government services. These robots have step-by-step directions, feedback in real-time, and mechanical responses that can be changed. Some government jobs could be done better, save time, and make people happy if they were done by machines.
The Singapore government helps people by using the "Ask Jamie" robot, which is driven by NLG. Jamie is good at using NLG to understand and answer questions. The robot tells you about services, rules, and how the government works. This makes the government easier to run and makes service better.
Compliance Reporting
Compliance reporting is an important part of the government because it makes sure that rules, policies, and standards are being followed. Natural Language Generation (NLG) is an important part of automating and easing compliance reporting processes, which makes them more accurate, efficient, and clear.
NLG technology can skim through a huge corpus of data and make reports that are clear, accurate, and thorough. Government offices have to spend significant resources on compliance reports because they have to deal with complicated data sets and rules. By simplifying the process of making compliance reports with NLG, agencies can save time and reduce the chance that they will make a mistake.
NLG-powered systems can pull useful information from multiple data sources, examine the data, and turn raw data into stories that people can understand. These stories give detailed views, reviews, and accounts of compliance data so that stakeholders can understand the results and make smart decisions.
Also, NLG can make sure that all offices and agencies report on compliance in the same way and follow the same rules. NLG systems can make reports with the right style and structure by using models and rules already set up. This routine makes it easy to synergize, compare and assess, and it also makes things more forthcoming and responsible.
In the United States, one group that uses NLG to report on compliance is the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC). The FFIEC uses NLG to automatically make reports about how well financial institutions are following the rules. NLG tools evaluate the data, pick out the most important results, and make reports with clear explanations and helpful insights. This technology has made compliance reports in banks much more accurate and efficient.
Risk Assessment and Fraud Detection
Fraud and risk assessment are important parts of government business control. Natural Language Generation (NLG) can make these processes much better by researching huge amounts of data, finding possible risks, and giving ideas that can be used to stop theft.
Using NLG technology, useful information from different sources can be pulled together and analyzed to find trends, outliers, and possible red flags. NLG systems can make reports that point out possible risks and make ideas for how to deal with them because they can handle data quickly and properly.
There are many different kinds of data that government offices deal with, such as cash transactions, records on people, and buying data. Systems that are run by NLG can review this data to find strange patterns and possible scams. The stories that are made can help government employees understand the risks that have been found and take the right steps to stop theft and protect public resources.
Also, NLG can improve risk assessment by making it easier to make risk assessment reports. Instead of directly researching and writing reports, NLG systems can turn complicated data into easy-to-understand stories. This saves the government both time and money.
NLG can also help find fraud by finding mistakes and oddities in financial deals, buying processes, and other places where fraud is likely to happen. By evaluating huge amounts of data, NLG systems can find deals or actions that seem strange and make reports that show possible scam risks.
Data-driven Decision Making
To make choices, the government needs correct and up-to-date information. NLG can turn complicated data into useful stories for government officials, which helps them make decisions based on data.
NLG technology can examine data and make reports with insights and other useful information. NLG tools help government workers find trends, patterns, and important points by turning raw data into stories.
Government offices keep track of data about the population, the economy, health, and other things. This info can be simplified by NLG. Officials in the government can use data stories to make choices that will help improve policies, projects, and services.
With NLG info, government officials can get reports on important problems right away. NLG can look at the number of infections, the size of hospitals, and the number of people who get vaccinated to help people make decisions about public health problems. This helps them come up with focused ideas, get the most out of their resources, and act quickly to new problems.
Emergency Response Communications
During a disaster, you should speak quickly and correctly to keep people safe and let them know what's going on. Natural Language Generation (NLG) may be able to send correct and up-to-date emergency alerts through text messages.
Using gadgets, social media, and government data, NLG technology can send notes, emails, and changes right away. These messages can be changed and sent out by SMS, email, social media, and website comments for natural disasters, public health problems, and security issues.
During a disaster, government organizations must share information about safety, escape paths, and reports on the situation. NLG can reduce complicated data into simple signs. The information in these messages is correct and up-to-date. This gives people accurate information they can use to make decisions and keep themselves and their communities safe.
NLG assists people in working together and making plans. NLG systems send reports and descriptions of events right away to rescue workers and people in charge of making decisions. These studies may bring together different pieces of knowledge, point out problems, and offer answers. This makes crisis assistance easier and better.
For example, NLG makes it easier to talk during floods and wildfires. Based on weather monitors, satellite pictures, and escape plans, NLG systems can quickly send road closing, evacuation, and safety alerts. There are many ways that these SMS can be sent to affected areas to help people get the information they need and stay safe.
Compliance and Regulatory Notifications
In the government area, it's important to follow the rules and make sure that policies are followed. Natural Language Generation (NLG) can help a lot in this area by creating safety and regulatory reports. This makes it easy for government offices to let businesses, groups, and people know about changes and new standards.
Complex government information, like changes to laws, policies, or procedures, can be handled by NLG technology, which can then send out clear, short, and easy-to-understand alerts right away. These messages can be changed to fit the rules that apply to different companies, places, or parts of the world.
By using systems that are powered by NLG, government agencies can quickly send compliance messages to the right people, such as via email, online platforms, and public websites. This makes sure that businesses and people get information quickly about new rules when they need to be followed, how to file, and any other duties they have.
Using NLG to handle compliance and regulatory reports not only speeds things up but also makes conversations more clear and more uniform. NLG-powered systems make sure that all the messages are the same, which removes the chance of mistakes or differences that can happen when this kind of information is written and sent out by hand.
Language Translation and Localization
It's important to be able to talk easily with people from different backgrounds if you work in the government. Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology can be a big help when it comes to translating and localizing languages. This means that government offices can provide services and information in more than one language so that everyone can use them.
Systems that use NLG can quickly change the language of papers, reports, and messages. This means that humans are no longer needed to translate, which can take a long time and cost significant money. Using NLG, government offices can quickly share information in many different languages with people who speak different languages.
Another case where NLG can help is localization. It means making changes to something so that it fits the customs and language of a certain place or group. NLG systems can change the language and content of copies of papers to fit the cultural norms and tastes of different groups.
By using NLG for language translation and localization, government agencies can break down boundaries and make sure they can communicate well with people who don't speak the official language well or who prefer to get information in their own language. This makes everyone feel welcome, makes it easier for people to use government services, and gets more people excited and active.
NLG can help translate a wide range of government documents, such as public comments, policies, rules, and information about services. This lets government offices reach more people and make sure that all voters can understand and get important information, no matter what language they speak.
Finally, NLG offers translation services for events, talks, and classes that happen in real-time. By adding NLG-powered language translation to their communication tools, government offices may be able to improve how they talk to each other.
Conclusion
In conclusion, using Natural Language Generation (NLG) in the government sector has many benefits and opens up interesting new ways to improve efficiency, improve services for people, and support data-driven decision-making. We have gone through the key use cases where NLG can have a big impact, such as automatic report writing, compliance reporting, risk assessment, and finding scams.
Government organizations can ease processes, cut down on manual work, and make sure information is correct and consistent by using NLG technology. NLG makes it possible for reports to be made instantly by turning raw data into tales and insights that are useful. This saves time and money and improves results at the same time.
As we look into the prospects of NLG in government, we encourage readers to check out our website for more pieces and tools on how NLG can change the way government works.