Improving citizen-government interactions with generative artificial intelligence: Novel human-computer interaction strategies for policy understanding through large language models.

Effective communication of government policies to citizens is crucial for transparency and engagement, yet challenges such as accessibility, complexity, and resource constraints obstruct this process. In the digital transformation and Generative AI era, integrating Generative AI and artificial intelligence technologies into public administration has significantly enhanced government governance, promoting dynamic interaction between public authorities and citizens. This paper proposes a system leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology combined with Large Language Models (LLMs) to improve policy communication. Addressing challenges of accessibility, complexity, and engagement in traditional dissemination methods, our system uses LLMs and a sophisticated retrieval mechanism to generate accurate, comprehensible responses to citizen queries about policies. This novel integration of RAG and LLMs for policy communication represents a significant advancement over traditional methods, offering unprecedented accuracy and accessibility. We experimented with our system with a diverse dataset of policy documents from both Chinese and US regional governments, comprising over 200 documents across various policy topics. Our system demonstrated high accuracy, averaging 85.58% for Chinese and 90.67% for US policies. Evaluation metrics included accuracy, comprehensibility, and public engagement, measured against expert human responses and baseline comparisons. The system effectively boosted public engagement, with case studies highlighting its impact on transparency and citizen interaction. These results indicate the system's efficacy in making policy information more accessible and understandable, thus enhancing public engagement. This innovative approach aims to build a more informed and participatory democratic process by improving communication between governments and citizens.