The UK's new AI taskforce, Stockholm's Smart City Expo, and the UN World Data Forum
Edition #20 The UK takes a £100m bet on building safe AI, while Japan's courting of ChatGPT has expanded to its use in local government...
In our previous edition, our focus was on using Generative AI in a policymaking environment. We looked at the use of LLMs in Civic Tech platforms, as well as China’s attempts to limit the capabilities of AI chatbots.
This week, Generative AI is again a running theme throughout the edition, but we focus instead on the role of a government as an ecosystem player in digital development. Manuel Aguilera’s blog helpfully summarizes Mariana Mazzucato’s argument that government innovates most profoundly in two scenarios: in times of crisis and when fueled by mission-oriented policies. On recently reading her book Mission-Driven Economy - which outlines the positive spillover effects of the “mission-oriented approaches” seen in the likes of DARPA and the Apollo Space Programme – I was struck by her description of “market shaping” government policy catalyzing the economy, crowding in investment and stimulating the public and private sector. Also in this edition, London’s CEO Theo Blackwell shares his takeaways from last week’s Smart City Expo in Stockholm, focusing on the necessary steps to transform cities into ‘market makers’ for smart city investment.
Our main stories this week:
Yokosuka becomes Japan’s first city to use ChatGPT for administrative tasks
A Conversation with Denmark’s Tech Ambassador
UK announces £100m expert taskforce to build and adopt next generation of safe AI
Don’t forget to check out our GovTech news in brief, the theory behind the practice and upcoming GovTech events.
Yokosuka becomes Japan’s first city to use ChatGPT for administrative tasks - Anika Osaki Exum, Japan Times
Following Japan’s embrace of generative AI – as demonstrated by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s promise to open an office in the country – some 4,000 employees in Yokosuka’s local government became the first to adopt ChatGPT in their day-to-day work.
After a team was gathered to suggest use cases for the trial, the employees will be using generative AI for ideation; marketing and communications; and drafting documentation.
The trial is occurring in conjunction with “LoGo chat”, a local government chatbot service already being used by Yokosuka employees.
Population crisis has been a large factor in sparking the trial – the general trend towards a shrinking population in Japan has been exacerbated in Yokosuka by the departure of major manufacturers and an insufficient tourist influx during Covid-19.
Our Take: With other governments around the world- such as Singapore and Dubai – outlining plans to use large language models in government, all eyes are on Yokosuka. Integrating Generative AI with “LoGo chat” to summarize texts and check for typographical errors is a good example of how ChatGPT can build on (not instead of) existing government services.
A conversation with Denmark’s tech ambassador - Courtney Radsch, Tech Policy Press
Having grown one ambassadorship in San Francisco to a network of 20 embassies around the world over the past six years, Anne Marie Engtoft Larsen reflects on the importance of her position and some of the key themes that will shape it in years to come.
Larsen’s role, and the approach of Denmark more generally in the tech space, revolves around three pillars: responsible innovation; promoting democracy; and ensuring cybersecurity.
Reflecting on data privacy, Larsen explores the idea of building AI services that need less data. As well as protecting large amounts of personal data, she called upon government to sponsor middleware, which will release only key information to a service (e.g. if a user is an adult).
Given Denmark’s relatively small speakership (just 5.6 million in the world), the country is also concerned with using AI for language preservation. Part of this involves building and making available Danish datasets for AI and content-moderation training.
Our Take: Denmark’s focus on language preservation is particularly interesting, and Andri Kristinsson shared with us how OpenAI is being used to similar effect in Iceland. The Ambassador’s interview raises interesting ethical questions, including how to compensate groups that provide the data for these training models (especially when it comes to preserving the language of indigenous people).
UK announces £100m expert taskforce to build and adopt next generation of safe AI - Gov.UK
The UK government has announced funding of £100 million for a new taskforce to kickstart the country’s safe and productive use of artificial intelligence.
The taskforce, modelled on the success of the Covid-19 vaccines taskforce, will aim to accelerate the UK’s capability in developing foundation models (including large language models like ChatGPT and Google Bard).
The investment will ensure sovereign AI capabilities and the broad adoption of safe and reliable foundation models, with research suggesting that the broad adoption of the latter could triple national productivity growth rates.
This investment comes on top of another £900 million recently announced for a new ‘exascale’ supercomputer and dedicated AI Research Centre to equip the UK with the necessary processing power it needs to support AI innovation.
GovTech News in Brief
Artificial Intelligence- with Innovation the EU has a chance - La Repubblica, Francesca Bria
Despite the current legislative challenges facing AI in Italy, the President of the Italian National Innovation Fund remains optimistic about the EU’s ability to regulate for safe and productive adoption.
NHS Weight Loss App: Three Million downloads wasted? - Tom Loosemore
With its 12-week weight loss plan having a completion rate of less than 1%, Loosemore digs into some of the preventable user design flaws that have hindered the NHS Weight Loss app.
Our Take: Loosemore’s blog is a reminder of how even the most seemingly insignificant design oversights can cripple a service lacking the correct feedback cycles. This is a common problem in government apps – one that interweave covered late last year.
The Government launches a mobile application for litigants - Le Monde
The French government’s new “Justice.fr” app allows users to better understand the legal system, including geolocation features to help them find a lawyer or notary.
Stockholm Smart City Expo [Twitter Thread] - Theo Blackwell
London’s CDO shares his takes from Stockholm’s Smart City Expo, focusing on the necessary steps to transform cities into ‘market makers’ for smart city investment.
GDS closes GOV.UK Verify Service - Mark Say, UK Authority
A year after its closure was announced, the UK government’s old identity authentication system has finally been phased out.
Our Take: The writing has been on the wall for Verify for several years now – this report from 2019 outlines its major failings, largely borne out of a lack of political will and coordination, together with legislative challenges.
UN World Data Forum: Interview with Claudia Mahler - The UN Brief
Ahead of the 4th UN Data Forum in China, UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Claudia Mahler explains the four themes of the conference and its significance for today’s technological moment.
Breaking through the screen: the exciting future of healthcare - e-Estonia
The latest e-Estonia podcast discusses the country’s e-health portal, focusing on how health data is managed and what cross-border data sharing might look like for Estonians living abroad.
The Theory Behind the Practice
How can we unleash the power of digital transformation in Government - UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Medium
Discussing the ideal conditions for public sector innovation, UCL’s panel included an argument from Mariana Mazzucatto that government must move from a ‘market fixing’ to ‘market shaping’ role in order to spur innovation.
Our Take: Mazzucatto argues that government should create safe spaces to encourage x-gov innovation, such as x-departmental policy labs. This is easier said than done, with competing incentives proving a barrier to working x-gov.
The role of training in transformation - Emily Webber, Public Digital
Public Digital reflects on how to design trainings to shape culture for the digital age, focusing on vision, messaging and forms of engagement.
Could ChatGPT solve the burnout crisis in government? - aPolitical
With burnout in government a huge topic of discussion in the company’s forums and articles, aPolitical explores ChatGPT’s use cases in government, and how it might help tackle the burnout crisis.
Our Take: This article is written largely in response to aPolitical’s recent event on using Generative AI in government, the event page for which now contains a wealth of AI-related links and papers.
Upcoming GovTech Events
Toward a Fourth Wave of Open Data? Where Generative AI and Open Data meet - The GovLab
This event - a collaboration between The GovLab and Microsoft - explores how Generative AI can be used to support existing open data and Data for Good programmes.
GovTech Leaders 2023 - GovTech Lab Lithuania
Lithuania’s annual GovTech Leaders conference is themed around ‘Reimagining’ this year, with panel topics including the gamification of government services and upskilling government workforces.