In the age of the smart machine (again)

In the age of the smart machine 

How can we benefit from the opportunities of digitization and AI in ways that improve both the provision of services and the experience of those working in them?

As a way of reflecting on the current imperative to benefit from the role-out of AI across business and public services, I have been re-reading Shoshana Zuboff’s seminal study ‘In the age of the smart machine’. This book, published in 1988, traced the implementation of an earlier generation of computer technologies. Whilst AI has many different characteristics, opportunities and potential risks, I think Zuboff’s analysis continues to have relevance and can provide insight into what is happening today. 

Automate or informate

A key distinction Zuboff makes is between technology used to automate work processes or to informate them.  If technology is used only to automate work: 

it can reduce skill levels, and dampen the urge towards more participatory and decentralized forms of management. 

I would argue that these are exactly the forms of management that are necessary for our increasingly  information driven, connected and networked organizations. As Philip Boxer has shown, service organizations are subject to multi-sided demand where: 

Digitalisation and the internet lead every client to expect more dynamic interaction with their particular situation, context and timing. 

To respond to this there has been a flattening of traditional (vertical) hierarchies and a shift to horizontal or lateral forms that enable leadership and decision-making at the ‘edge’ of the system where it meets consumer demands. Automation reverses this move in that it centralizes knowledge and degrades the work experience for those on the frontline. We can see this happening in Uber, Deliveroo and Amazon where employees are simply bodies undertaking manual labour.

 Whereas Zuboff says:

In contrast, an approach to technology deployment that emphasizes its informating capacity uses technology to do far more than routinize, fragment, or eliminate jobs. It uses the new technology to increase the intellectual content of work at virtually every organizational level, as the ability to decipher explicit information and make decisions informed by that understanding becomes broadly distributed among organizational members.

I think we can agree that this is the preferred approach. However, it brings with it challenges including to the authority of traditional management who may fear a loss of control if they are not the sole guardians of organizational knowledge. It is also not an easy process as computerization (or digitization or AI-zation) will fundamentally transform the nature of work and the task. The conditions for this to be successful and for the technology implementation to achieve its aims need to be right, and so often aren’t.

Socio-technical systems

The reasons for this, and what to do about it, are the focus of the Socio-Technical Systems (STS) approach. As Craig Appaneal has recently written:

STS theory is an organisational approach that considers both social and technical elements when designing and implementing systems. It emphasises the interdependence of technical systems, social systems, and work design, advocating for a holistic approach rather than a technology-centric focus. It’s not just about rolling out new software or upgrading infrastructure – it’s about ensuring technology enhances, rather than disrupts, the way people work.

The aim of STS is ‘joint optimisation’, that is ensuring balance between technical systems and the social or human aspects of the organization.  Appaneal highlights the Socio-Technical Systems Assessment Survey (STSAS) developed by Dr. William Pasmore, Professor at Columbia University, as one way to evaluate how well an organization aligns with STS principles, a task which should be essential to any large-scale technology project.

AI-zing the civil service

I was reminded of all of this when hearing about the UK government’s plans to use AI to replace the work of civil servants. The Civil Service is politically impartial and serves the government of the day to support them to develop and implement its policies as effectively as possible. The Guardian reports:

Officials will be told to abide by a mantra that says: ‘No person’s substantive time should be spent on a task where digital or AI can do it better, quicker and to the same high quality and standard.’

In Zuboff’s terms this feels very much like automating the work of civil servants. Whether this frees up capacity to also informate their work remains to be seen but, given that the primary driver is clearly cost-reduction, the signs are not good. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has claimed that “more than £45bn can be saved by greater use of digital methods in Whitehall, even before AI is deployed”. In relation to whether sufficient consideration is being given to the human impact of these changes and the need for joint optimization of technical and social systems, again the indication is that they are not. The announcement of the drive to digitalization is linked to a denigration of civil servants that mirrors the language of Elon Musk in the USA, such as Starmer saying he is taking on the “cottage industry of checkers and blockers slowing down delivery for working people”.

Transforming work

The transformation of services through IT implementation entails changing the nature of the work, the task and the workforce. To plan technological change without considering human factors would appear to be a return to the technological determinism of scientific management. For much of the Twentieth Century organizations were thought of as machines in which people were parts and were expected to fit with the technology of the age. Gareth Morgan argues that there is a continuing tendency to fall back on a strictly technical view of organizations where the view is, “if you get the engineering right the human will fall into place.” With AI it seems that the goal can often be to replace the human.

Making IT work

There is a difficult history of failed of IT implementation in the UK public sector that can be attributed to a lack of consideration of human factors and an assumption that installing the equipment is all that is required. The specific problems in the National Health Service (NHS) were reviewed by  Professor Robert Wachter of the University of California, San Francisco in the report ‘Making IT Work’. This highlighted a deterministic view that IT implementation alone was sufficient. The report notes that:

The experience of industry after industry has demonstrated that just installing computers without altering the work and workforce does not allow the system and its people to reach this potential; in fact, technology can sometimes get in the way. Getting it right requires a new approach, one that may appear paradoxical yet is ultimately obvious: digitising effectively is not simply about the technology, it is mostly about the people.

Adaptive change

Wachter draws on the work of Ronald Heifetz to show that “implementing health IT is one of the most complex adaptive changes in the history of healthcare, and perhaps of any industry” and that “adaptive change involves substantial and long-lasting engagement between those implementing the changes and the individuals tasked with making them work”. He places great emphasis on recognizing the fact that:

Digitizing large, complex organizations – particularly those, like healthcare, that do not involve repetitive, assembly line-type work but rather work with substantial complexity, nuance, and decision making under uncertainty – is adaptive change of the highest order.

I would certainly say that this applies to the majority of work within the UK civil service that is now subject to a new round of digitization. It is unclear whether government, civil service leaders and staff are in a position where they might achieve adaptive change in ways that maximize benefits whilst minimizing disruption and risks to services. Wachter suggests that:

Adaptive changes are those in which managers don’t already know the answers, and therefore require changes in the behavior of front-line workers and their active engagement with the problem.

The importance of (sometimes) not knowing

The pressure for leaders to ‘know’ is ever present and Starmer’s speech seems to imply pre-determined knowledge about the outcomes of digitizing the civil service. What is needed in these circumstances is leadership that can cope with inevitable uncertainty and disruption and bear the ‘not knowing’ without jumping precipitately into actions that are the result of anxiety and the need for immediate ‘solutions’. A central task for leaders and managers is to create an environment where staff are able to engage creatively, with curiosity and flexibility, with technology so that innovation can occur that holds in mind the needs of both the technical system and the social/human system. Supporting this capacity for not-knowing, or what the poet John Keats called negative capability, is often the task of organization consultants working with a systems-psychodynamics perspective. Sometimes we need an additional mind to help us bear the anxiety and uncertainty of change and to engage with the dynamics of the situation as they are, as opposed to how we wish they might be.

System failure?

In his paper for DEMOS called ‘System failure: Why governments must learn to think differently’,  Jake Chapman says that the existing model of public policy-making is based on the reduction of complex problems into separate components that are thought to be rationally manageable. He argues that this is no longer appropriate to complex systems which respond unpredictably to command and control and don’t behave in straightforward, linear ways. The result includes: 

unintended consequences, alienation of professionals involved in delivery, and long-term failure to improve overall system performance. 

The UK civil service is central to the delivery of the government’s agenda, the provision of efficient and effective services to the public, and the democratic life of the country. It is not a taxi service, food delivery service or shopping website so it is essential to avoid simplistic solutions to the complex problems faced by the civil service.  

What to do?

What might help the UK government to maximise the benefits of digitization and AI? It is difficult to know without an active engagement with what is happening ‘on the ground’ in government but an initial thought is to try to get greater clarity in the following areas, knowing that this is an iterative process that will require leaders to continuously engage with the dynamic situation:

• What is the desired aim of digitizing and using AI? What kind of service is intended? 

• What is the role of technology in achieving this and what kinds of workforce, led and organized in which ways, will be necessary?

• In what ways is it intended that the new technologies will change working practices? Are you automating or informating? How can existing staff be supported to adapt to complex change, and what new roles will be needed?

• How will these change impact organizational structures and managerial authority?

• What is needed to achieve joint optimization of the technical and social systems?

• Will it be possible for leadership to ‘not know’ the answer to all questions in advance but to have the creativity and flexibility to adapt to a rapidly emerging new reality? What might be needed to support this capacity?

Notes

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Bibliography

Appaneal, C. (2025). Down in the Mines - Socio-Technical Systems. Openloop Solutions. Available online.

Boxer, P. (2013). Leading organisations without boundaries: quantum organisation and the work of making meaning, paper presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations (ISPSO) at Oxford UK, July 2013. Available online.

Chapman, J. (2004). System failure: Why governments must learn to think differently. London: Demos.

French, R. (2001). ‘Negative capability: Managing the confusing uncertainties of change’, Journal of Organizational Change Management; 14(5), pp. 480-492

Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M. and Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Harvard Business Press.

Mason, R. (2025).  AI should replace some work of civil servants, Starmer to announce, Guardian online, 12 Mar 2025 Available online.

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization. London: Sage Publications.

Wachter, R. M. (2016). Making IT Work: Harnessing the Power of Health Information Technology to Improve Care in England. Report of the National Advisory Group on Health Information Technology in England. London: Crown Copyright.

Zuboff, S. (1988). In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York: Basic Books