Sadly our track record on IT is disgraceful, yes. Billion pound IT
black holes are strewn across health, education, defence.... It's a
legacy of cronyism and corruption from the incumbent Tory
"government". Consider Sunak's connections. OTOH our Civil Service
remains a beacon of competence in a sea of insane policies,
reshuffles, resignations, criminal scandals and total absenteeism.
It runs on "values", plus a bit of spit and prayer. There's no money.
Running something equivalent to the International Atomic Energy Agency
but for AI will need funds and support of the same order.
Which parts of the UK Civil Service would you say are more competent / effective in your personal experience? From the outside (US) perspective it's hard to see it as anything except the same-old bureaucracy and crazy rules that make it impossible to have any positive impact in America. (For example, the UK rules for getting a passport basically make it impossible to find somebody to countersign your application unless you happen to know a lot of lawyers / doctors professionally)
That's a good question, because I'm speaking now as a regular citizen,
civilian, and discounting any "professional" contact I have with
government. A lot of it is feel, and also by comparison to how _bad_
it once was, and the kind of thing I've experienced in mainland
Europe.
In Britain the cs are basically providing long-term continuity
regardless of how chaotic and volatile party politics becomes. What we
see is that most of the machinery of state keeps working, despite the
circus in the Commons. Despite Covid. Despite Brexit. So, without
subscribing to an anarchic take, we somehow concede that somebody,
somewhere, must be doing some work :)
Most people's contact is through online, if you can fire up even the
most basic browser almost every interaction is clear, fast and smooth.
When you start dealing at a higher level (business and contracting)
then you see behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain a bit. Things go more
smoothly if you have the right documents and history. Isn't that the
same in every country though?
So, it serves regular citizens very well, but less considerately as
your needs are more complex. Effective maybe, but I didn't say "fair"
:) Certainly there must be many people find it harder, and I'm
probably showing my privilege.
Yet somehow the same institutions produced gov.uk, which is superb compared to just about every other country’s counterpart. I’ve no idea how you did it, just wanted my appreciation on the record :)
It runs on "values", plus a bit of spit and prayer. There's no money.
Running something equivalent to the International Atomic Energy Agency but for AI will need funds and support of the same order.