Taka Ariga on Using AI to Combat Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Public Programs

Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode of Data for the People!, Data Foundation Senior Fellow Taka Ariga discusses the prospect of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance government efforts to prevent fraud and other types of improper payments in public benefit programs. Ariga was the first Chief Data Scientist at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) where he also directed GAO’s Innovation Lab. He later served as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. He is now a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation and the founder of Sol Imagination, an AI advisory company. Amanda Cash, the Senior Director of the Data Foundation’s Center for Data Policy, joins the episode as a co-host. Learn more about the Data Foundation/Deloitte report discussed on the episode, Navigating Transition and Change: 2025 Survey of Federal Chief Data Officers.  The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation