The UK government wants to use AI to cut civil service jobs

The two main fears surrounding AI are that the information these systems produce is meaningless and that it will unfairly take jobs away from people who won’t make such careless mistakes. But the current UK government is actively promoting the use of AI to carry out work normally done by civil servants, including drafting answers to parliamentary inquiries, on Financial Times reports.

UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is set to unveil a ‘red box’ tool which it claims can absorb and summarize information from reputable sources such as parliamentary minutes. A separate tool is also being trialled, which should work in a similar way, but with individual responses to public consultations. While it’s unclear how quickly the AI ​​tool can do this job, Dowden claims it takes three months with 25 government employees. However, drafts are said to always be double-checked by a human and include a source.

Telegraph quoted Dowden as arguing that the deployment of AI technology is critical to cutting civil service jobs, something he wants to do. “I think that’s really the only way if we’re going to take a sustainable path to downsizing.” Remember how much the size of the civil service has grown as a result of the pandemic and the preparations for leaving the EU. to really embrace these things to bring the numbers down.” Dowden’s statement is in line with his boss, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s, hopes to use technology to boost government productivity – shockingly, neither has proposed saving money by giving the AI ​​its job.

Dowden does show some restraint against AI doing everything. In a briefing before the speech, he noted that the government would not use AI for any “new or controversial or highly politically sensitive areas”. At the same time, the cabinet’s artificial intelligence unit will grow from 30 to 70 staff and receive a new budget of 110 million pounds ($139.1 million), up from 5 million pounds ($6.3 million).