To think we're fucked? Given that our government (s) couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery going by recent history....

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/mainlined-into-uks-veins-labour-announces-huge-public-rollout-of-ai

An open invitation to tech bros to plunder our coffers and for yet more algorithmic surveillance and interference.

Oh joy.

These headlines are an attempt to paper over the massive issues they’re facing

Like the China one the other day

The Tories would be doing exactly the same thing. Remember Sunaks fawning "interview" with Musk?

I wondered what they'd come up with today. Ooh look a squirrel!

AI should allow the public sector to become far more efficient.

Manual processes that are slow or overlooked can be replaced by AI, meaning more manpower for other things.

eg using AI to identify and fix potholes. That’s something which doesn’t happen because we don’t have enough capacity, AI could fix that.

All sorts of things you do will be using AI to make the process more efficient and accurate.

AI is good, it means you cut out the drudgery. However, it also means you need creative analytical thinkers more than ever to use the AI properly. And you need an energy plan to back up the AI. So unless they intend to invest in education and energy as well, it won’t work.
For example, far more university degrees backing this up so they are not so oversubscribed and lots of university courses to back up the green energy side of things (and perhaps teaching school children to analyse and think for themselves). And unless they sort out the National Grid as a priority none of this can work.
Last time I checked they scrapped the Computing funding in state education just a few days ago so they are not actually serious. They cannot possibly be or they are not funding it properly. They also scrapped Latin - again, coding relies on language and maths skills. I guess nobody bothered to check that one out, as usual.

The potential of AI to improve healthcare is massive. But I'm not sure the NHS is at the point of being ready. Elderly dad sent to A and E by GP with an envelope containing print out of his treatment record. I was really taken back and said but can't the hospital access your GP records online? Apparently not. So we may not be poised at the starting point of a technological revolution...

Labour might want to try at not driving away talent. We might create good things but keeping people is harder and their policies are doing the opposite.

I’m more concerned about them selling access to the nations healthcare records to private companies

I work for a big multinational who was planning to use AI to reduce headcount - it’s not quite there yet and they often have to backtrack. At the moment AI can make existing headcount more efficient - it’s going to take a little longer to replace people and then it will be the process driven tasks

its an odd announcement because I would have expected gov departments to already be doing this

Are you serious or being ironic re “leads the world”?

I’m not based now in the UK yet would kindly suggest the UK gov is catching up, not a leader

I’m honestly trying to think of something I have seen in the UK gov services and not already seen elsewhere - do you have any specific examples?

I would appreciate being encouraged to change my mind as the news from the UK is so doom and gloom a bit of doing well is nice !

Hopefully they will just use it for detecting potholes, surely not much can go wrong there
Ah, so all of the many people who have been loudly and repeatedly complaining about potholes and reporting them all - some have even had birthday parties organised by locals after being left for a year unfixed - couldn't get the message across?
Is this the government's version of pretending that thousands of women have never said anything about an important topic, because they only listen when a man says it?
This is the very definition of trying to fatten a pig by constantly weighing it.
And these things are always introduced and sold as being for simple, uncontroversial things, but they never stop there.
Sorry, not getting at you personally; just annoyed at a government - all governments - clearly assuming that we're all stupid.
The BBC article says "AI will be fed through cameras around the country to inspect roads and spot potholes that need fixing." They clearly do think that we're all stupid! They say "potholes", I can see "the introduction of Pay Per Mile".

Indeed. Matt Hancock apparently banned the NHS from buying new fax machines in 2018, with their use being wound down to extinction by 2020. Except it didn’t happen and the NHS continues to buy new fax machines to replace the old obsolete ones. It doesn’t scream readiness for new tech.

I report potholes to my council regularly. It generally takes them 3-6 months to actually come and fix them. The fixes are usually crap and last for only a few months.

AI is not going to improve local council inefficiency.

AI is only as good as the data provided to it. Yes, jobs may be lost in certain areas. But then new jobs will arise, particularly in checking data input, and analysing output to make sure it is correct. You can feed reams of medical information into an ai system. But, if you are relying on it - for example - to identify early signs of cancer, there needs to be a lot of follow-up to ensure it is accurate.

For things like education, it would be easy to feed in the entire maths curriculum, and then teachers could easily generate lesson plans, worksheets, etc. They would then be able to differentiate the work for students of varying levels (which occurs in every age group). Making it easier to challenge the brighter students, while still ensuring the struggling students are learning the basics.

But. before the teachers can do this, someone has to test all the output, and make sure it meets curriculum requirements. And this testing of output will be ongoing, because new data will always be fed into it. And this is maths which is fairly black and white. Imagine how many more people will be required testing and analysing input and output for subjects such as English, history, geography?. People will be needed to do this kind of work.

We all know we don't have enough health professionals. Imagine if you went to the GP, and the first thing you did was enter a booth, where you stood on electronic scales, stuck your arm into an automated blood pressure monitor, and then completed a comprehensive questionnaire covering all aspects of health and wellness. All this before you even saw the GP. But when you do sit down with the GP, they have all the red-flagged information in front of them, and can move straight into diagnosing and treating. Plus, over time as this data accumulated, it may be possible for long-term, chronic conditions to be identified earlier, improving outcomes for patients.

And these are only two fields which can result in greater employment, not less. Instead of people fear-mongering, what we need are people learning everything they can about AI, and then asking thoughtful questions of our government and MPs.

Our GP surgery has recently put a new IT system in, for the last 3 months there has been a queue of 20 or so people out of the door of the dispensary because its not working and they are having to sort through boxes of prescriptions by hand.
The pharmacist says its great when it works, but unfortunately it seems to stop working multiple times a day…not sure things didn’t run smoother when it was all on pen and paper!

It has a lot of applications that could free up humans to deal with the stuff that humans need to deal with, and one of the major benefits is that for very basic tasks where the data already exists in large quantities it doesn't require the same implementation time that traditional LLM tools used to need, so it's easier, cheaper and quicker to implement.

Provided they scope it correctly and don't expect it to take over sophisticated tasks, this could bring huge benefit.

Quietly confident that everything Keir Starmer knows about AI could be written on the head of a pin - with enough room left over for a list of his freebies.
This is blind panic leading to suppliers rubbing their hands with glee - a replay of the PPE fiasco awaits.
This government - like the one before it - has little credibility. Stop spaffing taxpayer money anywhere but the UK, find Labour councils with immediately available land and build social housing with a minimum of 70 year lifespan.
That may not be the most pressing matter, but it is visible and would demonstrate measurable progress.
Kicking the NHS waiting lists can, three-months+ down the road by giving folks 12 weeks to lose weight or give up smoking just wastes the time of healthcare workers to no real effect - shrinking lists by 2m by making 3m ineligible is not going to work - Streeting makes some positive noises but his social media history is full of threats of physical violence.
Trying to 'influence' Trump by acting as though Xi cares what we think is fatuous - especially since Starmer embarrassed Xi by criticising Chinese human rights.
In a week's time, the UK becomes Airstrip 1, mildly useful but not dependable - Lammy will get pushed if he doesn't jump first - writing an article suggesting Trump's support for the KKK seemed clever when the intelligentsia knew that there was no chance of a second term. Oops.

Easy options - though ones likely to make Rayner more powerful and Starmer won't allow that.

Fear of ai taking over, you have. But remember, control our destiny, we do; shape the future with wisdom, we must.

How will it detect potholes better than someone who drives on the road with a pothole in it & then phones the council or reports it online? How will it detect them at all?

This bit mystifies me.

And will the AI be believed over human complainers?

I lost my job to ai last year so it can fuck off.

Just seen upthread that cameras will be used. Well, not round here they won't. No cameras on the potholed roads here.

Of all the things to criticize, this is the one you picked. It doesn’t sound like you understand technology or the economy.

There’s plenty else they are doing wrong, just look at the front bench.

Rachel from accounts crashing the economy

Tulip Siddiq, the anti corruption minister, wait for it…being by investigated for corruption

David Lamey, who keeps trying to be noticed but Starmer has locked him in a cupboard for fear of international embarrassment

Angela ‘oi scum’ Rayner, probably scrapping outside the pub as we speak

Red Miliband

Louise ‘phones4me’ Haigh

Wes ‘word salad’ Streeting with a lot to say but never does anything

All of them clowns. Honestly you couldn’t make this shit up.