AI in public services: a conservative force?

In response to a report from the Tony Blair Institute, I argue that AI risks reinforcing paternalist, institutional mindsets.

“Taking the deepest of breaths, Harry raised his wand and pointed it towards the local hospital. “Artyfishialus intellyjensium”, he yelled and with a searing flash of light, the cruel waiting lists, writhing in agony, let out an ear-splitting squeal before crumbling to dust. “You did it, Harry”, said Hermione, her face glowing.” Not quite an exact summary of The Tony Blair Institute's recent publication on AI and public services but not far off.

According to the report, an injection of AI into our ailing public sector will: cut A&E wait times to four hours, reduce NHS bed occupancy to 85%, bring about a 90% productivity gain in processing of Personal Independence Payments, eliminate the need for any teacher to work overtime, allow large-scale public consultations to be analysed and reported on within twelve days, and provide every UK citizen with a “Digital Personal Assistant” to assess and manage benefit payments, help access services and even “advocate” on behalf of citizens to officials. The list goes on.

A wry smile might flicker across the lips of those old enough to recall the mismatch between the early promise of the last tech wave in public services and the much more expensive, slow and troubled reality. Of course the move online has brought many benefits, just as AI will, but this time round, the wisest commissioners are likely to remind themselves that big tech has a nasty habit of over-promising and under-delivering in everything except their own revenues.

More troubling though is what the report unwittingly reveals, namely that AI is an inherently conservative force when it is considered without any reference to the socio-economic context within which public services operate. Every proposal made in the report is about speeding-up processing, increasing productivity, saving money and time. The report may claim it has come up with “a new model to transform the state” but in fact it has done the very opposite. It unconsciously assumes that our industrialised, institutional approach is the right one and that the role of AI is simply to make the model work more efficiently. 

Nowhere is that clearer than in the report’s assertion that the public sector’s problems are the result of a shortage of well-qualified people. No mention of the surge in demand closely associated with poverty, poor housing, homelessness, obesity, the mental health crisis as well as relentless cuts to welfare and councils. One can only suspect that this oversight is because AI, despite its much-vaunted cleverness, is only really fit to enhance process efficiency rather than solve deep social problems. The worry must be that a comprehensive and rapid adoption of AI, as the report urges, will only further embed the institutional, bureaucratic mindset in public services that is so evidently failing to get to grips with the socio-economic causes of rising demand.

Which leaves the space open for a much more interesting piece of work. One that seeks to understand the role that AI might play in a genuine transformation of the state. How might AI, for example, accentuate the growing shift towards deliberative, consensus-building engagement with citizens to discover new solutions to social problems? Could AI play a role in the redesign of the state to break out of its institutional straitjacket and instead learn to mobilise community assets and energy to keep people happy and healthy? And maybe, most importantly, how could the adoption of AI be a catalyst for a deep culture shift in the public sector away from top-down paternalism and towards a focus on giving both the public service workforce and users, the agency and efficacy that is so central to well-being?

Finding the answers to those questions would be an act of wizardry of which even Harry would be proud. Bloggus Finisharium!