AI in Civil Service

The OGCIO have the real AI features of co-pilot blocked as far as I'm aware, at the very least in the Departments I've worked in.

It will still show up if you're using Bing but you can just change that over to Google even if you're using the Microsoft Edge browser, maybe someone in IT in your Department can give you pointers if you're not sure how to do that.

My understanding is that it isn't downloaded software but is a part of other MS software.

Firstly, your manager should have some faith in you instead of making accusations. On the laptops being recycled, I think the OGCIO have them reimaged but I'm not sure what that entails, hard drives are probably destroyed before anything is sent back out to the Departments, unless it was a laptop already held by your Department in which case it might have some residual files but you wouldn't have any access to these because its a different user account.

Talk to your local IT firstly and if they send you onto the OGCIO contact them then. (The OGCIO can take a while to respond compared to local IT especially recently for some reason). You were filling out your PMDS on the ePMDS site on your web browser right? In that case it'd be something to do with Microsoft Edge rather than M365.

Alternatively, you could just use Google Chrome, usually they'll hand out laptops with both of these applications. It's basically the same.

Depending on what Department you're in you may be able to get onto HR and see if they can move you. I know some people that have been moved from that but it is a little irregular sadly.

I'm not totally in love with where I am right now either but when I think about the jobs I was doing in the private sector before I feel a little better! Would you consider putting in for the EO competition open on public jobs right now? You could use that as a springboard into another role.

Also if you look for the rare privately run competitions they do (like some departments working with Staffline) they generally try to match you to work based on your strong points in the interview. A problem with PAS/publicjobs is that everyones just randomly assigned…

Absolutely sure and put in for mobility as well I put in on my first day because even if I was to love where I am right now god knows how you'll feel in 2 years time.

What exactly is the problem with using AI ? Surely using any tools that make your work better or faster is a good thing?

I don't get this either.

I would have thought using AI would be seen as a positive. I use AI the whole time myself, increasing productivity hugely.

Have you read the terms and conditions of the service? Where is your data being held? What are they allowed to do with your data?

There are loads of organisations that have explicitly blocked and banned AI tools because they have no way of validating the answers to those questions.

Thanks for response. You sound very conscientious and I’m sure you’re doing wonderfully despite your own misgivings.

Onwards and upwards. They’re lucky to have you I’d say.

OP, you need to confront and deal with your self proclaimed anxiety and recognise it for what it is.

There are plenty ways of doing this, PM me if you want some suggestions

About the Anxiety: have you tried mushrooms, as in Traditional Chinese Medicine type mushrooms, not magic Mushrooms.

I recently tried an Irish brand of Mushroom infused coffee. The brand is OYL coffee and it's owned by the same guy that owns the Dublin Barista School.

I found it very helpful for anxiety and replaced my normal 3 caffeine coffees with just this one in the morning. I'm not affiliated to the stuff or the owner, I just bought some in June and found it worked for me. 92% coffee grind and 8% mushroom (3 types).

Googling the question "How much has Google invested in AI?" that same AI [Google's], now baked into the search engine, reports that "In April 2024, Google CEO Demis Hassabis said that Google would spend more than $100 billion." ~ https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/27/opinion_ai_ml/

And you want that - or similar, from a smaller, poorer company - to make decisions on your healthcare? You do you, by all means. I'll stick to human consultants, thanks all the same.

I was responding to a poster who claimed that AI is banned from use in the public service.

Clearly, it isn't. It's just another tool which can be used by intelligent hymans to speed up processes - sometimes massively, usually by a lot let.

I wish that poster well if s/he is ever in a consultants rooms with symptoms that don't match usual patterns. Or indeed having to ask a very specific but niche query of Revenue and trying to figure out how to direct that query to the very small team responsible for the particular niche.