A.i in public services

[cycle tramp]

...
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Since 1982 my rates/ council tax has gone up by a factor of over 30!
The roads are in a much poorer state.
....

Well maybe you need to pay more tax? Perhaps reduced support from central government is a factor? I'm struggling with your logic though. You complain about costs and quality of service, but you don't like anything 'modern' that improves productivity, and seem to think that everything would be better if we went back to the good old days where a block with a shovel fixed the pothole while his three mates leaned on their brooms and smoked a fag or two?
A sensor and a camera isn't AI, but quite likely they are inputs to an AI system. This stuff is not rocket science, it's standard technology these days.

I already pay ten times more road fund licence than the average £35 for the "privilege" of running an old 1600cc car, thanks.

The shovel is just an example of a low tech low fossil energy remedy- that really works well.
Given a fit and committed workforce, but it's another issue.

I understand it's "standard technology" these days but I still question it's efficacy and economics.

But I guess you are right, the older I get the less I like "modern".
Just an old fogey!!

As the years go on, one thing I've found which ages me.. isn't the lack of disc brakes or carbon fibre on my bike, it's not the fact that I cycle slower or cycle less miles, but it's my slowness in accepting new ideas..
..there is nothing so useful as a strong work ethic and a mind to put it to practical use... but the trouble is now, there's too much work to do.. too many pot holes, too many benefit claims to assess.. and it's the same everywhere.. the NHS has too many patients.. too many people waiting to talk with 'talking therapies'... for those doing the work, A.i allows them to focus where their efforts can produce the best results..

[PDQ Mobile]

^^^
New ideas have to show their worth, new simply for the sake of new is a bad philosophy.

IMV over-centralisation and some facets of computerisation have been detrimental overall.
Simple solutions to simple problems and all that.
That has been my central point.

There are areas, like some medical diagnostics, where the use of AI is of great benefit.

I don't accept your premise that there's "too much work", though.
These potholes and culvert issues are symptoms of a wider malaise.
They are partly the result of "austerity" on an existing infrastructure put in place using a lot more real work, time and money than simple timely maintenance.
It is a shame to see this large body of work allowed to go to ruin.
A false economy.
"Spoiling ships for a happeth of tar" springs to mind.

Too much costly emphasis on IT has not helped either, which is where I came in!
The money spent on that would be better spent simply doing the practical stuff.

I remain broadly quite " young" in many aspects of my outlook.
I have tired of interacting with computers and updates and increased security and complexity issues though.
They have become more of a pain than their worth to me personally, and in my opinion in a wider societal context too.
New doesn't always equal better, and sometimes equals worse.

[cycle tramp]

I don't accept your premise that there's "too much work", though.

And why would you? Throughout this entire thread you have consistently derided methods through which works are prioritised through an electronic means, with known positive results, and offering no facts or figures to back up your statements, but rather hiding behind 'in my opinion'...or 'in my view'. Simply because of your ability with computers. Councils have long since passed such statements and decisions are based upon performances such as call handling times and the amount of contacts offered.

You've not once even considered the effect of a rising population before writing 'I don't accept there's too much work' or the fact that this population is getting older, with a reduction in young persons to support them. Nor the effects of things like no fault evictions or a rising housing shortage.

Why don't you ask citizens advice bureau about their workload, or shelter?

[Nearholmer]

There seems to be a very widespread ignorance or denial of the implications of demographic change.

In 1970, about 13% of the population were >64yo, and the proportion of teenagers in full time education >16yo was about the same.

Now, over 20%, and heading towards 25% of the population is >64yo, and the proportion of people who remain in full-time education is much higher, and many more of them are doing a full university degree.

In 1970 a man (quite a low percentage of women in full time paid work then) probably worked c45/75=0.6 of his life, and died before needing extensive health and social care. A person now probably works c42/85=0.5 of their life, having needed very significant health or care resources for maybe 5 to 10 years.

The picture in terms of “how much work there is to be done per person” is really complicated, because so many things have changed, but we certainly get through a lot more goods and services per capita than we did in 1970 (we are “more prosperous” in material terms), and we certainly have a vast amount more work to be done in providing health and social care for those >64yo ….. a huge proportion of NHS resource is directed to that, for instance, while at the same time a big increase in the full-time workforce has come from women.

But, what we can easily see is that our productivity, GDP per capita, got badly stuck from 2008 onwards. We’ve fallen even further behind our peers in that respect, and we weren’t in a good place at the start! Whether that’s because we’ve tied ourselves in knots doing pointless, unproductive stuff, or because we’ve failed to invest in the technology to make ourselves more productive, or because we spent so much cheap-credit-created money on imports, or because each working person is carrying too much deadweight of not-working people (in education, pensioners, long-term sick etc), or because we shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit, or a bit of each, I don’t know ……. and more importantly, no government since 2008 seems to have really had a really firm grasp of either!

[djnotts]

Demographic imbalances and thus financial problems are driven by the success of the NHS. If AI improves that success, than national finances will worsen

It's a double hit. Investing lots of money on health intervention on >60s does not not only not provide any return but rather actually costs further "investment" in pensions, care and more medical intervention. With very little "return".

If I had not received a treatment (that would not have been available 20 years previously) 4 years ago then the cost of that plus subsequent general health care and pensions for last 2-3 years would have been "saved". This while children go hungry here in UK.

We have to reduce life-span. Perhaps some of the downsides of AI will tackle that. Or end treatment for say over 70s but do spend on decent palliative care - cheaper.

[Nearholmer]

^^^

I’ve been pondering this too, and I think you’re right about the negative financial return on increasing lifespans. The “happiness return” also gets a bit questionable when people are spending long periods with debilitating conditions too.

But, there are alternatives to allowing/encouraging people to die earlier. For instance by capitalising on the potential of clever tech to provide the care/support that people need at lower unit cost, and by creating a society that allows/encourages people to attain great age without having s stack of chronic conditions, most of which originate in poor nutrition, lack of constructive exercise, booze, fags etc much earlier in life.

We could also do with restructuring the later part of working life, so that people can sensibly work for more years, but in less-punishing ways ……. there are multiple positives of work, and there’s no good reason for it to be an “all or nothing” thing.

[djnotts]

^ Can't disagree with your "alternatives" but some of these are very long-term and I can't see that will solve the problem before it overwhelms our society and economy.

[Nearholmer]

Not just a UK problem.

Japan is the famous case, ahead of us on the curve, but I was talking to a Chinese friend over Christmas, and he was telling me that the problem is now hitting China really seriously, with a sort of double-force because their “one child policy” created a sharp drop in numbers, which never returned to anything like peak level, and has fallen to below “one child policy” levels in the past five years. Their total population is already decreasing, and in a few decades time they will have more pensioners than people of working age! Ma was telling me that they already struggle to staff old-people’s homes - he is over there now, trying to sort out a better place for his elderly, widowed mother, because he’s worried about where she lives now.

[Biospace]

^^^
New ideas have to show their worth, new simply for the sake of new is a bad philosophy.
...
I remain broadly quite " young" in many aspects of my outlook.
I have tired of interacting with computers and updates and increased security and complexity issues though.
They have become more of a pain than their worth to me personally, and in my opinion in a wider societal context too.
New doesn't always equal better, and sometimes equals worse.

In a time of revolution, particularly in the earlier stages, I imagine that new very often does not mean better as people are carried away with the novelty of what is possible, rather than how well it achieves an end result.

Humans have a weakness for consumption as well as anything which is 'new' and in a nation which saw its dominance in a mechanical world, there are perhaps many more aspects of life in Britain which appear worse now than 50 years ago, compared with a nation like China.

We have to reduce life-span. Perhaps some of the downsides of AI will tackle that. Or end treatment for say over 70s but do spend on decent palliative care - cheaper.

You're assuming all old people have chronic disease, which is not reality, although increasing numbers do.

Better nutrition, clean water, far better working conditions plus superb surgeons and medication for acute disease have improved life quality hugely, but we should be looking to see what is different in those elderly who maintain near full health throughout their lives.

[[XAP]Bob]

We have to reduce life-span. Perhaps some of the downsides of AI will tackle that. Or end treatment for say over 70s but do spend on decent palliative care - cheaper.

You're assuming all old people have chronic disease, which is not reality, although increasing numbers do.

And that those with chronic disease are old, or "economically unproductive".
Some of us manage to hold down full time jobs, and act as trustees for multiple charities, and have a social life.

Chronic isn't the challenge, not even necessarily being expensive, it's debilitating that's the real b....r.
Though quality of life isn't an objectively measurable thing, so it's rather hard to put any restrictions on the amount of care we should provide to any individual - and that's an entirely different thread, which I think already exists as a result of the initial reading of a bill in the HoC.

[PDQ Mobile]

I don't accept your premise that there's "too much work", though.

And why would you? Throughout this entire thread you have consistently derided methods through which works are prioritised through an electronic means, with known positive results, and offering no facts or figures to back up your statements, but rather hiding behind 'in my opinion'...or 'in my view'. Simply because of your ability with computers. Councils have long since passed such statements and decisions are based upon performances such as call handling times and the amount of contacts offered.

You've not once even considered the effect of a rising population before writing 'I don't accept there's too much work' or the fact that this population is getting older, with a reduction in young persons to support them. Nor the effects of things like no fault evictions or a rising housing shortage.

Why don't you ask citizens advice bureau about their workload, or shelter?

Sorry I thought it was an open forum where people put forward their personal takes on things.
It's just a point of view, I know it's not very fashionable.

The poor state of much of our infrastructure is pretty well documented and the local examples put forward here are real enough though.
There is no doubt maintenance and hence infrastructure has suffered as IT and other labour saving machines have been introduced.
Strange but true.

It's funny isn't it, Newholmer and djnotts touch upon some of the issues.
((I have already said I see benefit in AI in medical diagnostics))
So as the new tech potentially takes away the need to do much physical work the downsides to that start to appear in poorer health in the population.

We drive to the gym, along flooded and potholed roads!

Go safe.

[Nearholmer]

If I may be so bold, I think what you are doing is observing two things that have happened at the same time (increasing capability of software-based systems, and decay of hard infrastructure), and making the leap in assumption that one caused the other. It didn’t.

Infrastructure in the UK has decayed because it hasn’t been looked after sufficiently, in some cases because privatised operators have milked it, and in others because the public bodies charged with its care have been given greater statutory duties, at the same time as their funding has been deliberately reduced. The robots didn’t do it, we did, by voting for particular policies time and again.

[PDQ Mobile]

If I may be so bold, I think what you are doing is observing two things that have happened at the same time (increasing capability of software-based systems, and decay of hard infrastructure), and making the leap in assumption that one caused the other. It didn’t.

Infrastructure in the UK has decayed because it hasn’t been looked after sufficiently, in some cases because privatised operators have milked it, and in others because the public bodies charged with its care have been given greater statutory duties, at the same time as their funding has been deliberately reduced. The robots didn’t do it, we did, by voting for particular policies time and again.

You may be right!
But the "tech" costs a lot of money in both people and the wherewithal.
So it's not a huge or unfair leap to see that that money may well have been diverted from other things.

Perhaps one day robots will do all this stuff, but it isn't yet here and I don't expect it in my lifetime.
Whether it ill be cost effective remains to be seen.

The new elite in America have just announced an $800 billion investment in AI, data centres etc.
Such a sum could bring small poverty stricken places some significant benefit if wisely used.
Ps.
My neighbour has been having some hospital appointments.
He attended the latest on Monday, appointment letter in hand, and had received a txt message reminder, only to he told it was a mix up and he shouldn't be there.
It's a 60 mile round trip.

And it's a computerised system!
It's enough to undermine one's faith in it all.


[cycle tramp]

I don't accept your premise that there's "too much work", though.

And why would you? Throughout this entire thread you have consistently derided methods through which works are prioritised through an electronic means, with known positive results, and offering no facts or figures to back up your statements, but rather hiding behind 'in my opinion'...or 'in my view'. Simply because of your ability with computers. Councils have long since passed such statements and decisions are based upon performances such as call handling times and the amount of contacts offered.

You've not once even considered the effect of a rising population before writing 'I don't accept there's too much work' or the fact that this population is getting older, with a reduction in young persons to support them. Nor the effects of things like no fault evictions or a rising housing shortage.

Why don't you ask citizens advice bureau about their workload, or shelter?

Sorry I thought it was an open forum where people put forward their personal takes on things.
It's just a point of view, I know it's not very fashionable.

A personal view is fine, but you've not backed it up with any facts.. whereas the A.i system which registers road defects had to go through the usual scurinty procedures for the council to invest in it.
Other personal views held in the past includes (i) the earth is flat (ii) the sun goes around the earth (iii) thunder is God taking off his sandals. Whilst these are personal views, not only don't they advance society, they rather hold it back.

If we invest in A.i right now, we may actually have products that we can bring to the global market and sell around the world. It would be nice to see our national balance of payments move from importing to exporting.. obviously this will not happen if we actually do something amazingly stupid like reject A.i, in which case, much like everything else, Britain will eventually arrive at the A.i Market, not as vendors, but once again as consumers... in which case we'll be paying other countries for goods which, with a bit of investment we could have been selling ourselves.

A.i is happening right now in almost every aspect of life. It's going to provide assistance in helping us make decisions.. which is no bad thing.

[cycle tramp]

It's 5 years in the future. There's two types of fridge, fridge (a) is a fridge (b) has A.i. the fridge with A.i costs more, and uses abit more energy.. but watches what gets stored in it, and orders replacement food when it's run out, at the lowest price, and it reads use by dates and suggests meals to use up thus food, insuring less waste. Fridge b also has a healthy option so that your medical records form part of the food ordering and meal selection process - and it also has a 'watch dog' mode so any unhealthy foods are reported to your doctor.