Officials in Winthrop are considering approving the town’s first-ever artificial intelligence use policy for town employees, a move that several other Maine communities could soon make as the technology becomes more pervasive.

Winthrop’s new policy is among the first of its kind in Maine and would prohibit town staff from using AI to “replace human decision-making” without department head permission. The proposed policy, initially reviewed by town councilors during their July 21 meeting, also requires staff to personally review anything created by AI before publishing or sending the document.

As drafted, the policy also stipulates that misuse of AI — regardless of intention — can result in town staff facing discipline, including firing.

While school districts and police departments have begun using AI and implementing new policies, few cities or towns in Maine have adopted their own official AI regulations, according to Brian McDonald, director of information technology and administration at the Maine Municipal Association.

But, given recent interest from municipalities across the state, he said he expects that number to rise quickly.

“I think it is taking off,” McDonald said. “And our hope is that in a very, very short amount of time, everybody will have a really, really good AI policy that they can move forward with.”

Winthrop Town Manager Anthony Wilson said he got the idea for the policy from a session hosted by McDonald during an MMA technology conference in May, and has worked closely with McDonald to develop the policy. McDonald said Wilson has been one of the most engaged town managers in the state on implementing AI intentionally and responsibly.

“(MMA) really stressed that the first thing you want to do as an organization when you start using artificial intelligence is make sure that you have a policy in place,” Wilson said. “And for a public organization, that’s really important, just to ensure that information that should be sensitive or private or protected in some sort of way does not end up on an open-source AI platform.”

He said he has already incorporated AI into his work in reviewing job applications internally for such things as checking to see if he missed an important trait or to sort resumes by work experience. He said some town staff have expressed interest in using AI as a writing aid or to synthesize long documents.

Wilson said his goal is to make Winthrop’s processes more efficient, and he believes AI can often serve that role.

Information security is one of the bigger concerns addressed in Winthrop’s new policy: One section prohibits employees from inputting personally identifiable information and other sensitive data into any AI program. Another requires each AI program to “undergo a thorough security assessment before implementation.”

But even those regulations may not be effective without proper training of town staff, Wilson said.

During the July 21 meeting when the Town Council first considered the policy, Winthrop resident Timothy Adams called for the town to set up employee training on sensitive information.

“I think it’s very easy to make the mistake of dropping the wrong Excel document into ChatGPT, asking it to arrange something in a particular way, and now a whole bunch of citizens that really liked keeping their stuff private is now cannon fodder for the next guy’s query,” Adams said.

Another resident, Gil Soucy, said he hoped the council would delay approving the policy pending recommendations from the Maine Artificial Intelligence Task Force, which was formed late last year to study AI in Maine.

Winthrop’s initial policy included six “pre-approved” programs for town employees — including Chat GPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot — and Soucy said he would like to include others as they become available.

Wilson said he expected the Town Council to reconsider the AI policy later this fall after the state task force is expected to release its recommendations. He said the new version of the town policy will include training requirements for town staff on privacy and security.

If councilors approve the policy, Wilson said he knows Winthrop will be blazing a new trail for towns in central Maine — even towns that he said may be hesitant to adopt the use of AI.

“There was a fellow (at the June MMA conference) — he served on the Select Board of a very tiny town — and he said that the response of people within that organization was, ‘We’re too small to be using AI,'” Wilson said. “And I just sort of chuckled to myself. To me, that’s like saying: ‘We’re too tiny to be messing around with this internet thing or computers.’ It’s coming.”