“The names of our AI tools? Ha!” cried George, knocking his head back. “We had our ‘heads-up’ with Hermes and Apollo. So don’t be too shocked! They were all heroes. All about to save the world. Not just with brave acts, of course, but with all the prowess of artificial intelligence! Like ….”

Lucija couldn’t resist interrupting.

“I guess Odysseus was amongst them!” she chipped in, stirred by the images in her mind from her favourite schoolgirl stories.

“Yeah, like, they were all there – Odysseus, Perseus, Jason; and even Bellerophon”, came back George.

“But, of course, the greatest of all stood out – Hercules, the perfect AI tool for all our policy knowledge needs!”

The three of them glanced at each other,  giggled, and turned to sip on their coffees.

George drew in a heavy breath. “I still can’t work out this AI business,” reflected George, in an attempt to bring the conversation back to the serious subject of further informatisation and the future of the ERA.

“It seems only right that we are paid to provide objective, logical content in everything we do – whether it’s to turn a Commissioner’s brilliant idea into a rational, manageable, evidence-based policy intervention; furnish the Director-General with a reasoned, consistent briefing; or reply to a Parliamentarian with a sound and coherent reply to a letter,” he began.

“And now these magic tools come along that take rationalism and a scientific approach to administration to the extreme. In less than three minutes, they can make a policy literature review, which would take an army of us a week. At the same time, they provide a neat summary, which would take one of us a morning to complete. And then they trot out a set of lines-to-take that any sensible and conservative colleague would be proud of, certainly as a decent first draft.”

Lucija and Konrad’s faces matched each other with the same earnest expression. Lucija decided to rein George in from another of his diatribes.

“Yes, George, we hear you,” murmured Lucija. “But it does make you wonder, once we have AI completely installed, what we’re going to be paid for,” she said glancing towards Konrad, whose look of sincerity had now turned into one of concern. “You seem to be suggesting, George, that any room for creativity in the administration will all go,” she added.

“Ah, functionaries and room for creativity? That’s a paradox in our day-to-day existence that has troubled me for many years,” replied George. “Ever since I realised, to paraphrase Sir Humphrey in ‘Yes Minister’, that we all are merely humble vessels into which Commissioners pour the fruits of their deliberations!”

“Are you now implying that it will be enough to have the right algorithm, operated by the right functionary, to manage the entire administration?” queried Lucija.

“I wouldn’t go so far,” replied George. “All I’m saying is that AI seems peculiarly suited to our jobs as civil servants. Whichever way I look at it, I just can’t see how a politician – or the general public for that matter – would expect a functionary to be anything else than rational and hardworking. I certainly don’t think they want us to be capricious artists! How else can we do our work if we don’t have some rules to follow, some order, some method? Where’s the room for creativity in that?”

“George, let’s not go there,” came back Lucija, now more forcefully. “I’ve never liked the ‘efficient machinery of government’ metaphor to describe what we do. Dividing the world up into the rational and the irrational, for me, creates a false dichotomy.”

Lucija had taken a firm grip on the conversation by now and George was once again grateful to her for her no-nonsense-only-common-sense approach to work.

Konrad, on the other hand, had begun wondering how so much energy could go into morning coffees in the ERA and what he might have been missing by not coming earlier into the office.

George took back the conversation. “You’re quite right, Lucija,” he conceded. “I was wrong to bring rationality into it. If we go down that route, we’ll have no option but to accept that politics is irrational. And that will only give the Jungians a field day and certainly won’t help us when we get back to the office!”

George’s irony gave some space for Lucija and Konrad to have a chuckle and the tension in the coffee session subsided once more.

“So, what are we going to do then?” asked Konrad, now with greater abandon.

“I wish I had an answer,” George confessed to his two colleagues. “If AI is going to take over and the web continues to become our main information source, I suppose the only solution would be for the functionaries themselves to work more on the content on the web and…”

“You mean, publish their own stuff?” interjected Konrad, slightly alarmed.

“Well, until now we’ve always been confined to making official reports. Encouraging functionaries to publish articles in the press has always been a bit of an ethical challenge. But who knows, all that could change in future,” responded George.

“Well, we’ve talked about this before, George, in terms of gathering inputs for impact assessments. The higher the standards we set ourselves for reaching out to stakeholders and getting all citizens involved, and the more we help them to respond to calls for evidence, improve their submissions and participation in the policy process, the more good content we will have and the higher the quality the evidence base we will get.”

Konrad smiled when he realised George was talking just like his favourite political science professor at university.

“My old professor Münzinger used to always warn us that open democracy inevitably leads to more work in government and more complex decision-making processes.”

“Precisely!” cried Lucija, excited by the way the conversation was leading out of the gloom. “Improving the evidence base will be one hell of a big job. And there will always be those shirkers and the enemies of the people who want to make life difficult for us, so be ready for a pretty dirty job at times!”

Lucija’s cheeks had reddened and she smiled to herself.

“Let’s face it, cleaning up the vast Augean stables of policy analysis never put Hercules off!”

“You’re right, Lucija, that will be no mean task!” declared George.

“And while we’re about it, let’s show that AI Hound of Hades who is master and who is dog!”

“We’ll have him tamed yet!”

[End of this episode]