Tim Moreland surfs the wave of change from his seat within Chattanooga city government.
“I’ve always kind of looked for innovative ways in doing my work and that’s allowed me to stay very curious and look at what’s out there, what’s coming, and what we might be able to do next,” said Moreland, administrator of the city of Chattanooga’s Department of Innovation Delivery and Performance.
“I will say Mayor Tim Kelly is always looking for innovative ways to improve service delivery, and definitely sees artificial intelligence as a potential tool to help unlock a lot of innovation and improvements. The city of Chattanooga, in general, is very innovative in its thinking and approaches, and so we’re often doing things a couple steps ahead of our peers.”
Moreland shared his perspective in an episode of the student-led CH-AI Brews podcast from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He said his approach is to bring understanding that overcomes some of the confusion around AI.
“We used some of our innovation funds to purchase a beefier computer workstation so that we can start to run some of these open-source models and become more fluent in the language of AI and AI models,” he said. “We’re actually using that as an experiment to test an automatic pothole detector.”
A reason for Moreland’s optimism regarding the acceptance of AI is its assistance in getting people started simply.
“For anyone who’s tried to start something from scratch, most of the hard work is in that first 10% of just getting started,” he said. “A lot of these generative AI tools really help you get started more quickly so you can be more productive overall.”
The human factor, Moreland said, remains the priority in all technology development or use.
“We’re also emphasizing the importance of keeping the human in the loop…making the decisions, having the final say and taking responsibility for what the AI is developing,” he said.
Moreland said his conversation with CH-AI Brews is part of an intentional focus on making the reaching out to the community to expand awareness of the city’s embrace of new methods and technologies to enhance services.
The podcast appearance helps “let people know that there’s a lot of work happening in the city, to think about responsible use of AI so people understand it’s not the wild west,” Moreland said.
All cities encounter and consider new technology for their operations and, Moreland said, he hears from colleagues elsewhere that Chattanooga has a reputation for being “technology-forward.”
“I’m always surprised when we talk with (people from) other cities. They look at what we’re doing in Chattanooga and they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re ahead of the game on some of this stuff,’ even our governance and how we’re working through this stuff and how we think about it.”
Moreland doesn’t express fear about the impact of AI on individual jobs. He explained that he often notes, in response to people anxious about AI, that it’s “a co-pilot, a responsible tool. It’s not a job replacement,” he said. “It’s a job augmentation.”
Moreland’s career began as a transportation planner with the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development before he joined Chattanooga city government in 2015. He has a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Rhodes College in Memphis and a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of Memphis.
CHAI Brews: Infusing Conversations About AI is a UTC student-led podcast exploring the impact of AI on university classrooms and campuses; the career fields students are pursuing and the workplaces that await them; the city of Chattanooga, the state of Tennessee and the people who live there.
Excerpts of the podcast air on Mondays on WUTC-FM 88.1 and can be found online at wutc.org. CH-AI Brews is also available on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Listen to the entire Tim Moreland interview HERE.