21 February 2024 | The 9th edition of The Apolitical View by Apolitical CEO and Co-Founder Robyn Scott. Subcribe to the newsletter

In this week's edition:

  • In education, how to bring the best of the old into the new
  • Custom GPTs for Apolitical courses
  • Ireland’s ‘Innovation Attachés’

The majority of education today remains stuck in a time warp. There’s nothing like having a five-year-old in their first year of school to ensure you confront daily the yawning gap between what the current education system offers and what will be needed in the coming decades. Take a time machine to the corporate world of 30 years ago, and it’s almost unrecognisable compared to today. But do the same with schools and pitifully little has changed.

I took part in several Future of Education sessions at last week’s World Governments Summit and this gap — between the future’s requirements and today’s readiness for them — was on stark display. In one private roundtable, distinguished academics representing some of the world’s most powerful and trusted brands in the form of their universities spoke strikingly little about the massive implications for education in a world of AI. When they did, it was often with a deer-in-the-headlights look about them. In contrast, a few hours later I was on a panel with a young entrepreneur who had started a personalised AI teacher in his dorm room.

Governments are waking up to the problem but still lack solutions: UNESCO’s new Artificial Intelligence and Education: Guidance for Policymakers emphasises as crucial the development of AI competencies, including generative AI-related skills for learners.

At Apolitical, we are excited about bridging this gap for public servants. We're bringing together the best of the old world and the best of the new, and enabling public servants to have a cutting-edge learning experience that would impress the employees of an innovative corporation. Here’s how we’re thinking about it.

In an age of escalating deepfakery, the trusted knowledge from leading universities and research institutes becomes more important than ever. We’re proud to host courses developed by these institutions on Apolitical, and we’re using AI to enhance them by turning each course into a custom GPT.

By “custom GPT”, I’m referring to a friendly AI companion for each course built on ChatGPT technology. You ask it questions, and it answers in a conversational style — using the power of generative AI. The custom GPT can query a corpus of content which includes core course materials, references and sources, research and any wider country data, to give you a rapid, contextualised answer.

We think innovations like this represent the future of learning. If you’d like a demo before the feature goes live, let us know. We’d appreciate the feedback.

Managing deepfakes. On the topic of escalating deepfakery, at last week’s Munich Security Conference it was encouraging to see the world’s biggest technology companies pledge to fight election-related AI deepfakes. It’s not enough, but shining a spotlight on the issue is a good start.

Robyn Scott

Apolitical CEO & Co-Founder

What's in my diary this week

I’m travelling to Miami to take part in a convening hosted by a large US foundation on the future of civic tech. The particular lens being applied is AI, and I’m especially looking forward to hearing more about how US public servants are thinking about the role of tech in and beyond an election year.

My recommendations

The OECD has published its second Government Digital Index. South Korea once again scored highest, with the UK, Denmark, Canada, Norway and Australia in the top five. Interestingly, Germany disappeared from the rankings entirely this year on the grounds of incomplete data. Germany’s difficulty in progressing its digitisation strategy underscores how important building a digital culture in government is as an enabler of wider national growth and productivity — especially with AI coming into play. This echoes a conversation I had with the health minister of a German state earlier this year. She wanted to lean into the power of digital in health, but she was blocked by the near impossibility of getting the data she needed, from citizens and other ministries.

And finally...

The government of Ireland is implementing a cool idea as part of its new innovation strategy. In response to rising global demand for digital and AI skills, Ireland announced last week that the first of six ‘Talent and Innovation Attachés’ will be based in San Francisco, to promote Ireland as a destination for education and research.

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