Deputy PM Oliver Dowden announced a new “hit squad” unit to replace Civil Servants with AI last night at a training event. He unveiled the £5 million “Incubator for AI” plans which are meant to be a “significant downward driver” in reducing the bloated size of the civil service. The new unit would use AI to process asylum claims, welfare fraud, and NHS0-patient interaction. Not quite what civil servants had in mind when it came to AI helping them do their job…

Dowden declared:

“This is about trying to get a hit squad … that is going to go out there and actually bring a high level of expertise to try and identify innovative solutions to projects. I’m a Conservative, I want the smallest possible state and the best possible outcomes.”

Considering civil service productivity levels are still so low, it make sense to replace them with AI. The bots won’t demand weekly siestas or refuse to go into the office… 

Nick Ferrari gave Oliver Dowden a rinsing on LBC this morning over his inability to name any possible recipients of £38 million in taxpayer cash gifted to “accelerate development in world’s poorest countries using AI“. 8 African research labs are said to be receiving funding, though Dowden couldn’t name where any of them would be. Hardly specific and targeted…

Ferrari said: “If I was DPM and I was handing out £38 million worth of voters’ money I’d be bloody certain which countries it’d be going to in Africa, but that’s just me“.

The FCDO has announced this morning that the UK is combining with Canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote a “boost in AI programming to combat inequality and boost prosperity on the continent“. Because only UK taxpayer funds can unlock “the benefits of AI to the 700 million people who speak 46 African languages”…