As the Government sheds public servants and develops an AI workforce plan, a critic suggests it has 'an overly simplistic view on AI-use'

The increased use of technology and the uptake of artificial intelligence (AI), has long been touted by government as a way the public service can adapt to the country's tight fiscal needs and future proof itself to be financially sustainable. That view coming into clearer view this week after the announcement of operating cuts totalling $2.4 billion for the public service.

The Government expects that to come from mergers, utilising AI and technology and through reducing public servant jobs.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the public were using AI every day, "and, while parts of the public sector have seized the opportunity to innovate, others are still locked into outdated ways of doing things that prioritise box-ticking over outcomes."

Willis said that was not acceptable or sustainable so the Government would put a sinking lid on agencies’ operating budgets to; "drive progress on streamlining the number of government agencies and entities, digitising customer-facing and back-office government functions, and restoring public service numbers to historical norms."

But while plans are already underway to accelerate the use of AI in the public service, it is not clear how much this will actually save.

In February the Government chief digital officer Paul James said there were not a lot of data points available yet on how much AI would save New Zealand, and while it would absolutely drive down costs, it would take a while to get there.

Asked by Labour's Reuben Davidson what specific roles AI was expected to replace, Public Service Minister Paul Goldsmith this week said they would be working through this over the next three years. An AI workforce plan was also in process.

Asked if he had evidence showing AI being able to safely carry out public service roles at scale, Goldsmith said, "it depends on what particular roles one has in mind, but currently, already, AI is being used in certain circumstances across the public sector, as it’s used across the wider world."

'An overly simplistic view on AI-use'

Auckland University senior law lecturer Joshua Yuvaraj said the announcement to streamline public services using AI suggested; "an overly simplistic view on AI-use without a full appreciation of the sheer scope of work that government departments do, and the different risk levels that different government departments may have."

"When you're saying that this technology is reliable enough for us to downsize the public service by a significant number, then I think that's an extraordinary claim that needs extraordinary supporting evidence of efficacy and accuracy, which the empirical evidence just doesn't suggest that that's the case as far as I'm aware."

Yuvaraj said not enough attention had been paid to the potential for things to go wrong, and whether that had been factored into the plan to significantly downsize government departments in favour of integrating AI.

"One of the main issues with the AI tools that seem to be mooted is the issue of accuracy. If generative AI tools are used, one of the major problems is they are not tethered to reality. They have no conception of right or wrong. They have no conception of true or false. What they have is a conception of what they are fed in their training data right now."

Yuvaraj asked if a mistake is made, "how is that going to be handled? Who is going to be liable, and how are we going to apportion blame? How is the public going to feel?"

"If you're asking an AI tool to approximate what we've typically allocated to human judgment, you've got to expect that there are going to be mistakes, there are going to be inaccuracies."

"The retort will be, well, humans make mistakes, that's true, but humans exist in a sort of pyramid of accountability, and employment accountability, even accountability of criminal law, et cetera."

Yuvaraj said it was very easy to say AI would save time, "but again, the the body of evidence on that is mixed."