Stormont suggests AI could automate public sector admin

A draft Stormont strategy suggests Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be rolled out across the public sector to automate routine administrative tasks.

It highlights document processing, data entry, minute-taking, and basic query handling as prime areas for automation.

The strategy does not mention job cuts but suggests changes to how civil servants will work and states that staff should be "freed up for human interactions by automating routine public-facing tasks".

However a spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA) said AI has the potential to "erode workers' rights".

The document, published by the Executive Office, also says that "basic technologies should be rolled out as a priority to increase efficiency in routine office tasks".

It also suggests that AI could be used to speed up public consultations to "enable a swifter passage to policy".

Other areas highlighted for transformation include using AI to speed up planning application and analysing large public datasets to guide policy decisions.

The draft, developed alongside the Department for the Economy, says that "large-scale transformation in one go is virtually impossible".

Instead it suggests an approach of breaking down transformation into "readily comprehensible projects with a clear emphasis on value and impact" alongside training and "a space for experimentation".

It also suggests that new roles will have to be created in the form of "human oversight teams" within each department who have technical expertise and are also "critical thinkers and challengers".

Human oversight is among the eight principles in the consultation which it says "sets an operational expectation for how AI should be developed, procured, and managed".

It also advocates a "smart second-mover" approach, which means, rather than spending huge sums trying to build bespoke AI tools from scratch, the public sector should adapt proven, off-the-shelf technologies that have succeeded elsewhere.

In a statement, General Secretary of the trade union NIPSA, Carmel Gates said there is a need for "an overarching strategy" to how AI is approached within public services.

"Much of the work done by public servants is confidential and AI presents dangers if there are not strict controls on its use," she said.

"NIPSA had a short introductory meeting with Professor Helen McCarthy, the Executive Office's Chief Scientific and Technology Adviser, who is overseeing the work, but we have not had sight of the draft strategy. We would expect full consultation before it is published.

"NIPSA will seek to ensure that jobs and terms and conditions are protected. The introduction of AI should not come at the expense of workers' rights, job security and dignity."

The document also suggests that Northern Ireland will need to build more data centres, the key infrastructure on which AI relies.

Data centres are effectively warehouses full of computers which require huge amounts of electricity.

Depending on their design they can also consume large amounts of water, which is used to cool the computers.

In the Republic, data centres now account for a quarter of all electricity being consumed which has become a matter of political controversy.

The document says NI should develop "the necessary compute infrastructure to avoid vendor lock-in with cloud services".

Essentially this means that NI should develop data centres so that it is not reliant on buying computing power from businesses like Amazon Web Services.

It adds: "Cloud is too expensive for training new AI models, for allowing space for experimentation, or for deep R&D. Sovereign, green, high-performance computing is therefore essential".