FIFTH ANNUAL SUNSHINE WEEK SYMPOSIUM – March 17–21, 2025
Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) is happy to announce its Fifth Annual Sunshine Week Symposium, which this year is entitled: “Advanced Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Freedom of Information Act.”
The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) is an essential tool for promoting transparency and accountability in the federal government. Technological developments, such as the transition to electronic records, have long impacted FOIA administration. But in recent years, the arrival of advanced Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has prompted especially important conversations about the promises and limits of relying on AI-driven systems to assist in the management, processing, and disclosure of agency records. Over the course of Sunshine Week, symposium contributors will examine the impact of advanced technology—and especially, AI—on the future of FOIA, both in terms of potential benefits and inevitable challenges, and on open government more broadly.
Some of the following issues and others are likely to be explored:
- The role of AI and other technologies in federal records management and retrieval.
- The potential for AI to improve the requester experience, especially in terms of drafting and submitting FOIA requests.
- The use of AI, including natural language processing models and machine learning, to improve the speed, accuracy, and cost efficiency of agency processing efforts.
- The promise of AI to facilitate proactive disclosure and address ancillary issues, such as compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
- The impact of AI on declassification review.
- The prospects and limits of generative and predictive AI technologies when used for responsiveness review and redaction.
- The impact of AI on judicial review of agency FOIA determinations and, more broadly, FOIA litigation.
- The intersection of FOIA, AI, privacy concerns, and the current state of public trust in the federal government.
This year’s symposium participants include:
- Jason R. Baron, University of Maryland
- Alex Howard, Civic Texts
- Irvin McCullough, consultant, Government Accountability Project
- Sean O’Neill, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Information Policy
- Nick Wittenberg, Armedia
The symposium panel discussion will take place on Thursday, March 20th at 10:15am in the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center. The discussion will serve as one of the breakout sessions for “Sunshine Fest 2025,” which is being organized by the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. For further details about Sunshine Fest, visit https://sunshineweek.org/sunshine-fest/.
Registration for online viewing is available here.
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