I would love to know what the Microsoft sales reps have been saying in their group chats with govt advisers. Digital transformation (which this is) is a culture change project. Having slept on it, I fell like you need to be on crack to think the best way to implement that is with 2000 *apprentices*. - ThreadSky

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social • 7 hours ago

I would love to know what the Microsoft sales reps have been saying in their group chats with govt advisers. Digital transformation (which this is) is a culture change project. Having slept on it, I fell like you need to be on crack to think the best way to implement that is with 2000 *apprentices*.

Reposted from Rachel Coldicutt

Is always difficult to tell from
stories like this what is actually happening but I am curious to see how govt can be turbocharged if the plan is hiring a lot of apprentices who will presumably need training? Also, I am not sure the evidence backs the PM's assertions news.sky.com/story/ai-tec...

Comments

annadent.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Feels like someone has seen an opportunity to smush together 2 unrelated priorities in a way that superficially sounds good but in fact makes no sense. Perhaps we now have not only 'stick some AI on it' but also 'pop some apprentices in' as guiding principles for policy

foundationsofthedigitalstate.com•5 hours ago

there's a portmanteau jumping at me

Aiprentices

annadent.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Shhhh they will start calling them that!

alyx.diginomica.com•6 hours ago

Been banging this drum for so long now. Culture change is fundamental or the technology will fail. AI isn't a magical modernisation tool.

brennick.bsky.social•6 hours ago

They need to get specific. How exactly will AI turbocharge government? Give us some specific examples. How much will the turbocharging cost? Equipment, software, training etc. How many workers will it replace? What will be the cost of the redundancies?

paulmwatson.com•5 hours ago

“do it better, quicker and to the same high quality and standard."

So better, but the same? Word salad.

Also we know genAI is not high quality. If it has a strength then quality is not it. Supervision and checking of all genAI is required (fraught with problems as human review is.)

josiesawers.bsky.social•4 hours ago

deanvipond.bsky.social•7 hours ago

I’m on my third gov dept/ALB now. The job requires you to be a detective, archaeologist, agony aunt, motivational speaker and diplomat, all while trying to complete a Rubiks Cube while walking through a corridor full of rakes. Even if I thought AI was the solution, you can’t turbocharge its use.

steveparks.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Might it be possible, though, to turbocharge its _misuse_? The US seems to be setting an example here.

That would provide lots of opportunity for ministers to trumpet new hi-tech launches, while the subsequent failures are likely to be hard to trace back to them, and to impact people who can’t sue

deanvipond.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Eleventy-hundred percent.

krittikaa.bsky.social•7 hours ago

BWAHAHAHAHA

adamlbrown.bsky.social•3 hours ago

If you actually speak to analysts/ policy people who use co-pilot in their job and ask them honestly how much of their workflow it is able to usefully automate the answer is, like, maybe 1 task a week. Under 5%. The idea that we can mass replace staff with this tech is just functionally illiterate.

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•3 hours ago

It will end up as mostly replacing citizen-facing customer service I imagine and in eg sorting correspondence (as per DWP's "white mail"'app) or planning applications responses etc

adamlbrown.bsky.social•2 hours ago

So the exact type of dystopian "if I could just actually talk to someone this could all be sorted in five minutes" dysfunctionality that everyone already hates? Doesn't actually save any time or effort, it just shifts it - along with a whole load of stress and unhappiness - onto the public.

edjefferson.com•5 hours ago

my grandson is very good at the computer I think he should help the civil service

mostfoolhardy.bsky.social•6 hours ago

this feels like they're playing sing one song to the tune of another, they need the apprentices and want the ai; so have publicly assigned them to it so they can hire them

steveparks.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Will these “tech apprentices” all have self-awarded nicknames such as “big balls”?

hilaryonline.bsky.social•6 hours ago

“Prompt Queen”

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•6 hours ago

*silently screams*

annkempster.com•6 hours ago

Smacks of the whole misconception of “apprentices = cheap labour, problem solved”.

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•7 hours ago

I am assuming this plan is better thought through than "we're going to bring in some people who have never had a job but can suggest some gen AI prompts to replace your job." 🧐

kcorrick.bsky.social•7 hours ago

🤞

essi-lindstedt.bsky.social•7 hours ago

I would assume that is likely what is happening. Big companies see government consulting as low margin but low effort gruntwork.

There could be a role for people to help people get confident with new tools that goes far broader than AI. But that is skilled change stuff not chainsaws.

alpinemigrant.bsky.social•7 hours ago

You know, I’m not sure it is …

bookseditorial.bsky.social•6 hours ago

This feels like an ambitious assumption. Bringing in people who don't have organisational memory or expertise/awareness of complexity/nuance is more likely a cost cutting driver, powered by strategic ignorance. Someone else will have to deal with the "orphaned processes"

kevinmarks.com•7 hours ago

Rachel Reeves replaces the benefit system with a computer that says no.

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Anyway let's hope this is some new non-DOGE influenced use of the word "apprentices" that means "experienced digital professionals who will be supported into govt through a well-managed period of immersion and on-boarding"

essi-lindstedt.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Flashback to when a well known consulting company tried to sell “state of the art” programme management approaches to my expert team that mobilised programmes in fragile states. One day we read to the bottom of the email chain where a junior there said “I have been googling programme management”… 🙄

foundationsofthedigitalstate.com•5 hours ago

Flashback to being on a government working party 25 years ago when someone trotted out their successful digital upskilling programme - training people to do photocopy maintenance

hilaryonline.bsky.social•6 hours ago

It feels DOGE adjacent, or just a little a bit sitcom “The AI-Team”. Perhaps even that balletdancer>cyber specialist advert we all laughed at during COVID? I want to see the recruitment campaign, basically

loukas.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I have a horrible suspicion it definitely means "people we can treat as junior and pay as little as possible".

liedra.net•7 hours ago

I would hope so but it wouldn’t surprise me if they said they’d train these apprentices up on LLMs so they can do prompt engineering or something ridiculous

risu.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Hear me out, mr starmer, and I’m just a woman what do I know, but perhaps the U.K. could innovate by listening to people who aren’t white men, who have years of experience and who aren’t just on twitter. Bc who will train these youngsters? The same fools saying mainline ai into uk veins

neilwd.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Is it fair to say this has all the hallmarks of something that will go extremely badly?

tallgeekychap.bsky.social•5 hours ago

And will these apprentices be provided by Euan Blair's business, by any chance?

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Christ

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