The Bureau of Labor Statistics is implementing artificial intelligence and automation to simplify the agency’s data analysis operations, Nextgov reported Friday. The Department of Labor component started using open-source software to automate menial functions and deployed a neural network framework to mitigate system errors earlier this year.
Alex Measure, who worked as an economist at BLS, noted that the new technology helps the agency in activities such as the annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses which require personnel to code large amounts of text. He added that the bureau’s use of algorithms for 85 percent of coding work has allowed staff to “spend more time on other important things.â€
BLS is planning to implement AI to more bureau operations and potentially share its automated procedures to other agencies.