When countries have suffered the odd mishap regarding government paralysis or convulsive change, the frequent quip would often be: “Who noticed?” Much like university vice-chancellors or the parasitic management structures of most organisations, their forced absence merely induces a range of feelings from relief to indifference.  They are all superfluous and know it.  Reasons to justify their existence must therefore be invented.

With the introduction of artificial intelligence into various spheres of society, an assured sense of superfluousness is bound to get even more profound.  Little wonder that AI technology is very modish in government circles, encouraging the Australian government, for example, to praise its “immense potential to improve social and economic wellbeing.”  And seeing as government is very often a multiplication of the irrelevant, the hopeless and the spurious, it only follows that AI would be praised for improving it.  “For government,” the Australian AI policy goes on to explain, “the benefits of adopting AI include more efficient and accurate agency operations, better data analysis and evidence-based decisions, and improved service delivery for people and business.”  

Little in the way of justice, human rights, or equity is mentioned in this glowing praise, which is often the problem with the next fad that captures those supposedly running a country.  Efficiency chatter rarely features the welfare of the human.  This has........

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