Dr Nick Waggett

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...

Discussion of the potential benefits and harms of artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere currently following the ‘AI Safety Summit’ hosted by the UK government.  But what of the human side of the relationship? How might this be affected as the power and reach of AI develops?  Drawing on my research and consultancy experience, I offer some brief thoughts on how our thinking about AI might be lost and gained in future. Is AI awful? In the episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror called ‘ Joan is Awful ’ the main character Joan (played by Annie Murphy) discovers that a global streaming platform has launched a TV drama adaptation of her life - in which she is portrayed by Hollywood A-lister Salma Hayek. Joan discovers that she has signed away the rights to her identity by ticking the T&Cs box which ‘nobody reads’ and can therefore do nothing about it. She teams up with the real Salma ‘f***ing’ Hayek who, we learn, has also lost the rights to her actor identity and t...