AI in public services – a political panacea?
Here in the UK, it’s party conference season – where tens of thousands of politicians, party members, charities, not-for-profits and businesses descend on a city in the hopes of understanding and influencing the political parties and their policy agendas.
Much of the national focus was on Labour this year – with this being the first party conference just after their return to power.
AI has undoubtedly gone from a niche topic to a main event. Over 50 different events explored how AI and technology could support the UK government in delivering on its missions for growth, safer streets, education, justice and climate.
However, there can be a real difficulty in navigating a realistic path through the hope and the hype.
It must be right that governments consider how AI might be used to help improve or enhance public services. In the UK, Labour have taken on a daunting inheritance of cut budgets, changing populations, workforce burnout and shortages, public sector strikes, long waiting lists and complex issues arising from the legacy of the pandemic – all of which are putting pressure on services and the public finances.
It can be tempting therefore to see AI as a ‘silver bullet’ or panacea for current challenges. Certainly, the sense that there is a lot of political hope riding on AI was tangible throughout the conference.
But if we’re serious about AI’s potential – if we think it really could be transformative in delivering better, more responsive public services that work in the public interest – we need to make sure it’s done right. It’s essential that we move with care, caution and curiosity.
So what might that look like in practice?
Four starting points to succeed with AI
From our research at the Ada Lovelace Institute, I’d suggest four starting points, which – I hope – have applicability and resonance beyond the UK.
First, we need to start from the problem the service needs to solve, not the technology. There will be some issues where AI tools may be able to help, but there will also be others where it won’t. They might be the wrong methodologies. There might not be good enough data available to create an accurate or fair product. In some contexts, it might just feel inappropriate for technology to mediate the relationship between a service and a user, the citizens and the state.
Second, where AI could help, we need to better understand the conditions that will make it work. Across Ada’s research we’ve looked at a range of very different use cases, from genomics in healthcare and predictive analytics in local authorities, to generative AI in the civil service.
Read a previous post from Imogen Parker: Making AI work for people and society
If there’s one overarching lesson to draw out it’s that AI is not ‘plug-and-play’ or a ‘quick win’. AI might offer benefits but realising them won’t be quick and it won’t be easy. Inserting technology creates ripple effects within public services, for the people using them and the professionals working in them. Getting AI right means going beyond the technology to consider how it is actually being integrated into existing systems of delivery. Professionals have to understand and trust it to ensure it delivers value.
Third, we need to get the governance right to enable public trust. Public services require a high bar of performance and accountability: the public can’t shop around for a different justice system or public health system. Making mistakes could have profound impacts on people’s lives, on their health, their finances and their rights. We know from our research with publics that strong baselines of transparency, clear and robust accountability and evaluation approaches and strong regulation are important factors for trust.
And lastly, there may be some areas where we need to be more radical and more ambitious. By and large, the question of AI in public services is still seen as a technical set of questions first, with some ethics and economics issues thrown in.
AI could be transformative, but the question is how do we want society and the state to transform? Governments around the world need a clearer vision for the public sector in an AI era. The questions we need to grapple with are not simply whether and where to insert AI, but how public services should evolve in light of AI.
I’d love to know what you think and what your starting points might be!
About Imogen Parker
Imogen is Associate Director (Society, justice & public services) at the Ada Lovelace Institute. Imogen’s career has been at the intersection of social justice, technology and research. In her previous role as Head of the Nuffield Foundation’s programmes on Justice, Rights and Digital Society she worked in collaboration with the founding partner organisations to create the Institute. Prior to that she was acting Head of Policy Research for Citizens and Democracy at Citizens Advice, Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and worked with Baroness Kidron to create the children’s digital rights charity 5Rights. She is a Policy Fellow at Cambridge University’s Centre for Science and Policy.
