Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and one of its core technologies, machine learning, have been widely utilized with the coming of the fourth industrial revolution. Although AI is playing increasingly more important roles in improving public management efficiency and the quality of decision making, public managers need to fully recognize the challenges AI is imposing on humanities and the relationship between government and society. Public management is a political process, which constrains the application of AI technology at the same time. By analyzing an case utilizing AI in decision making in the public sector, this paper illustrates the challenges AI technologies may experience and its threats toward public values, emphasizing the necessity for public managers to fully recognize and prepare the accompanying risks and uncertainty.

Key words: artificial intelligence, public management reform, technological empowerment, machine learning, public values, technological rationality