January 2024 - Parks & Recreation - 38

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
trying ChatGPT - an AI chatbot
that communicates through conversational
dialogue to provide detailed
responses to instruction prompts -
he thought, " This is something that
probably does not have boundaries
in terms of the fields that it's going
to impact. How can we leverage this
and find ways to create efficiencies? "
Current Perceptions and Use
While Pitti is excited by the prospects
of AI, feelings across the park and
recreation field run the gamut. Next
Practice Partners, LLC (NPP) conducted
a survey during October and
November 2023 on the perceptions
and impact of AI in parks and recreation
to determine where the profession
currently stands. Among the
more than 1,200 responses received
nationwide, " the sentiment we've
gotten is that it's interesting, and it's
scary, and it's inevitable, " says Neelay
Bhatt, NPP founder and CEO.
Pitti's team reflects that sentiment:
" Some people are really excited -
they're like, 'This is definitely going
to make the work that I do a lot easier.' "
On the other hand, he says, " I
have certainly gotten the stereotypical,
'Is this going to automate my
job? Is this going to replace me?' "
To quell concerns, he says, " You rebrand
it, reframe it, put it through a
different lens and say, 'No, I'm encouraging
you to use this, and we
will use you in a different way.' "
So far, Pitti's team primarily uses
ChatGPT, a widely recognized
AI platform that receives approximately
1.6 billion monthly website
visitors and set the record for the
fastest-growing user base in history
for a consumer application (tinyurl.
com/2p8544cu). Pitti's department
of three full-time staff members
serves approximately 30,000 community
members and has used the
program " as essentially an infinitely
patient intern " to assist with a range
of ideation and writing-heavy tasks,
he says. " A lot of what our office
had been doing prior to my hiring
was using paper registrations, a lot of
print marketing. The programs were
sort of passed on verbally from generation
to generation - there were
no rule sheets, no emergency action
plans, " Pitti explains. " So, a lot of
what we use [ChatGPT] for is developing
rule sheets that formalize some
of our program structures...developing
welcome letters for families as
an introduction for some of our programs...drafting
program announcements,
memos, blurbs for brochures,
different verbiage for staff trainings,
emergency action plans. We've used
it for quite a number of things. "
Another platform at the forefront
for parks and recreation is Placer.ai,
which uses location analytics to provide
data on the movement of people,
such as where they travel to/
from and how long they stay at a
given location. According to Perry
Vetter, parks and recreation director
for Edina, Minnesota, the primary
questions his department aims to
answer using Placer.ai are " really
understanding who our users are...
[and] how [they are] interacting within
our park system. " In the past, staff
would rely on information like sales
transaction data to determine who
was using what resources and amenities.
However, sales transaction data
isn't available at every facility, and
even the ones that do have access to
that data don't obtain information
from people who pay cash, explains
Kersten McManamon, marketing
manager at City of Edina. " There are
gaps in all of it, so we're able to use
[Placer.ai] as another tool in our toolbox
to piece the data together to give
us a more accurate picture, " she says.
Many commonly used programs
and platforms, such as Google, Can38
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January 2024 - Parks & Recreation

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