Overview

January 9

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General Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, LlaMA, and others have captured the public’s attention with their ability to perform a wide range of tasks including answering questions, writing articles, code, etc. Although the models perform well at a large range of broad tasks, they often fall short when applied to specific business use cases without fine-tuning and refinement. 

Because of this, the concept of domain-specific LLMs has evolved. A domain-specific LLM is a general model that has been trained on data from a specific domain. This additional training/tuning gives the LLM a deep understanding of the terminology, concepts, and relationships within that domain. This allows the domain-specific LLM to perform tasks such as generating text, translating languages, and answering questions in a more accurate and informative way than a general-purpose LLM.

In this webinar, you will learn how to harness the power of domain-specific LLMs for State and Local use cases to improve the accuracy and performance of general-purpose LLM’s, help reduce the risk of bias and hallucination, and enhance the user experience.

Speakers

Ronnie Thomas headshot

Ronnie Thomas

Strategy & Analytics Specialist Leader, Deloitte

Ronnie is Strategy & Analytics Specialist leader in Deloitte and a seasoned AI, business, and technology expert with over 15 years of experience serving public sector clients. He excels at leading cross functional teams to deliver innovative AI solutions to solve complex business challenges. His is skilled in the realm of large-scale program and project management, where he excels at crafting and executing digital strategies that effectively leverage technology. These strategies are aimed at boosting operational efficiency, improving customer engagement, and elevating service quality, with a keen focus on meeting the specific needs of clients in state and local government. Ronnie specializes in spearheading initiatives in Digital Transformation, Applied AI, Generative AI, Intelligent Automation, Conversational AI, and Advanced Analytics. His approach in these projects merges technical acumen with a deep understanding of public sector challenges, driving meaningful change and innovation in government agencies. Ronnie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA with a concentration in Strategy and IT, with additional certifications in Telecommunication and AI Strategy, which equip him with both theoretical knowledge and practical insight into the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

Bill Rials headshot

Bill Rials — Moderator

Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government

William (Bill) Rials, Ph.D., is a professor and associate director (department chair) of the Tulane University School of Professional Advancement IT and Cybersecurity Program. He focuses on continually delivering and updating the program curriculum based on innovative and emerging technologies. Before transitioning to academia and higher education, he had a diverse gov tech career delivering value to state agencies, local governments, and law enforcement agencies throughout the state of Mississippi.