Training 1 million public servants in AI

20 June 2024 | The 18th edition of The Apolitical View by Apolitical CEO and Co-Founder Robyn Scott. Subcribe to the newsletter

In this week's edition:

• Training 1 million public servants in AI – Politicians’ mental wellbeing – Could “AI-Steve” be Brighton’s new MP?

I’m on the plane back from Stockholm and the Future Talent Council’s AI Summit, where we made an exciting announcement about the future of AI skills in government. More on that below. Talent in government was also a theme central to a panel I moderated with Dragoș Tudorache, a Member of the European Parliament and Rapporteur of the EU’s landmark AI Act, Darja Isaksson, the Director General of Vinnova, Sweden’s innovation agency, and Sara Övreby, Head of Public Policy, Google Sweden.

The most striking moment of the conversation was when I suggested that Dragoș — much interviewed on AI — ask himself a question he’d never been asked before, but thought he should have been. “Can the AI genie be put back in the bottle?” he said. Before he had a chance to answer, the audience shouted an emphatic “No!”. Dragoș agreed, and the discussion moved to how, given this, we tame the genie to maximise gains and minimise harms for society. Dragoș and Darja, the two government representatives, stressed the criticality of skills in government.

Which made for a nice transition to the announcement from Google’s Sara and myself that Google.org has given Apolitical a $5 million grant to train 1 million public servants in AI. This funding will scale the pilot of the Government AI Campus, which has already delivered online training to 13,000 public officials, powered by content from the likes of Stanford Online. The expansion will include five new courses, convenings and briefings for senior decision-makers, a thought leadership series and new tools and frameworks. It will also support adaptation of the AI Campus content to different country contexts, partnering with government ministries in key regions. This includes translation into ten languages (including French, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Korean and Japanese), developing country-specific case studies and drawing on local and regional AI experts.

While 59% of government officials have used generative AI in their work, only 15% have received training.

In the 48 hours since making the announcement, we’ve been overwhelmed by interest from governments around the world. This is no surprise: while 59% of government officials have used generative AI in their work, only 15% have received training. If you are working in government and wondering how best to harness AI, or you know someone who is, I’d invite you to come and speak to us.

Me in conversation with, left to right, Sara Övreby, Head of Public Policy for Google Sweden; Clea Conner, CEO of Open to Debate; and Darja Isaksson, Director General of Vinnova Sweden (Dragoș Tudorache, MEP, out of frame)

While in Stockholm, I had the pleasure of joining a private lunch conversation on AI with Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling Sapiens. The conversation spanned the risks and opportunities of AI and several other technologies. Despite plenty of disagreement around the table, there was striking alignment on the need for ethical and enlightened politicians, and the difficulty today of being a politician. I shared the sobering recent research from the Apolitical Foundation on politicians’ mental wellbeing, which is lower than that of emergency responders such as ambulance workers. This important work was featured in a recent BBC series.

Robyn Scott

Apolitical CEO & Co-Founder

In my diary

Sunday 23 June — United Nations Public Service Day

Public Service Day is always a special opportunity for us to honour our global community. This year’s theme is ‘Fostering Innovation amid Global Challenges: a Public Sector Perspective’. It’s exciting to see public servants hailed not just as heroes but changemakers and trailblazers. Look out for news of the winners from the Public Service Awards in Korea, where there is a special focus on reforming public institutions and tackling climate change.

Tuesday 2 July — Civil Service Live London

For our UK community, we’ll be back at the ExCel Centre in London to connect with thousands of civil servants at one of Europe’s largest public sector learning and development events. If you’re going, come and say hello to the team and let us know you’re an Apolitical View reader!

Recommendations

We’ve just launched the alpha version of our Apolitical AI assistant for the online course: Understand How AI Impacts You and Your Government. This tool helps public servants delve deeper into the course content by enabling more specific questions, making it easier to apply materials from the course to their role in government. Soon, public servants enrolled on the course will be able to access external case studies and resources by simply asking our AI assistant questions as they go through each lesson. I’d love your feedback if you’re testing it out.

And finally...

Would you vote for an AI MP? In the UK city of Brighton (home to several members of the Apolitical team), an AI-generated candidate is running for MP in the forthcoming general election. Meet AI-Steve: an online avatar of a former industry executive. Local residents can suggest policies — you can view them in a ticker tape at the bottom of the page — and commuters from Brighton’s railway station can score the proposals. Policies meeting the 50% threshold will be adopted, and the scorers will control all AI-Steve’s parliamentary votes should he make it to Westminster.

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