The Morongo Band of Mission Indians governs itself in a unique way. 

“We’re like a super democracy,” said the tribe’s chief administrative officer Jason Carrizosa. “We don’t have a constitution or anything like that.” 

Instead, Morongo law is a patchwork of citizen approved ordinances, resolutions and ballot referendums. Carrizosa said abiding by those hundreds of pieces of legal precedent is crucial, but keeping track of them can be challenging. 

“If I need to ask about a governance issue, like, does the tribal council have the authority to act in this manner?” Carrizosa said. Finding the answer used to require some digging by the tribe’s legal staff, often right in the middle of a tribal council or general membership meeting. 

“That could take ten or fifteen minutes or even longer,” Carrizosa said. “Now with AI, it takes 10 to 15 seconds.” 

Carrizosa presented at Wiring the Rez, a summit focused on artificial intelligence adoption in Indian Country, about a proprietary chatbot that he trained on Morongo legislative history. He said the AI-driven legal repository is helping the Morongo Band’s government make decisions that honor its past. The plan is to roll it out to the tribe’s general membership to promote access to and participation in its “super democracy.”

“It’s more than just using it as a glorified search engine,” said Max Spivak, the Morongo Band’s in-house counsel. “The ultimate benefit is for the community itself.” 

Many of the tribal leaders gathered at Wiring the Rez are embracing AI as a force multiplier in hard to staff departments, a revenue-booster for the enterprises and a tool to help preserve and revitalize Indigenous languages. But AI-use also poses unique risks in Indian Country. 

“We are obviously a community that has been exploited for our data and for our culture for centuries,” said Traci Morris, director of the Center for Tribal Digital Sovereignty at Arizona State University. 

Tribal nations hold sensitive data about their citizens just like any other government. But they also house enrollment and genealogical records, sensitive historical documents, language materials and fiercely guarded cultural knowledge. 

At the start of the summit, Morris polled the tribal leaders and employees in attendance and found that most were using AI regularly for help with everything from research and data analysis to communicating with tribal members. Most were using open-source bots like ChatGPT rather than locked-down, proprietary models. 

“Imagine you don’t have a lot of folks working in your department and you want to apply for a grant,” Morris said. “You pop your tribal data into a chatbot and it spits out a great narrative. But now that model owns and can be trained on your data.” 

Morris called it “rather frightening” that tribal nations could lose control of proprietary information they’ve worked hard to protect. But there’s another familiar risk for Indian Country when it comes to emerging tech. 

“We as a people were not meant to be left behind,” said Paula Starr, chief information officer for the Cherokee Nation. “This is one of those efforts in which we know we have to keep pace.” 

In August, Cherokee Nation became one of the first tribes to adopt a government-wide artificial intelligence policy encouraging use of a secure, closed-source model. 

“I think the most surprising use case for us, definitely, was our 3D printing of turtle shells using AI to build a model,” Starr said. “In our language immersion schools, our children are learning how to stomp dance which requires turtle shell shakers affixed to their legs.” 

Starr said that application is in line with feedback from Cherokee nation citizens that helped shape the nation’s AI policy. 

“About three quarters of the citizens we surveyed said they don’t have a high-level understanding of AI,” Starr said. “They are good with us exploring it as a government, as long as we keep it culturally grounded.” 

In some communities, staying culturally grounded can also mean taking it slow on AI adoption. 

“Oh, we’re very risk averse. It’s funny. It’s like a genetic predisposition how resistant we are to change,” said Jason Carrizosa, who is working on a policy to encourage and put guardrails around AI use at Morongo. He said one challenge could be getting the community to buy in.