Calling all, um, 'general AI' practitioners: Blighty needs you for public sector glory

The UK government's procurement arm has floated the creation of a framework to allow public sector techies to buy something that hasn't been invented yet: artificial general intelligence, er... general artificial intelligence. OK, so the wording in the prior information notice (PIN) from Crown Commercial Services is perhaps …

[Pascal Monett]

"rather than sentient software that can do multiple tasks like a human and is but a distant reality"

A distant reality ? For the moment, it is totally science-fiction and honestly, I have to wonder if we will ever be smart enough to create industrially something that is actually intelligent. We are still learning how the brain works. We took twelve years to map the pitifully small 25 thousand neurons of a fly's brain, and it cost $40 million to get that result.

We are very far from understanding the most complex organ in our bodies and, as long as we don't, I fail to see how we will be able to create anything that is intelligent based on our technology. Frankenstein was a nice story, but there is no lightning bolt that will give life to a semiconductor. Artificial Intelligence, the real stuff, is not even on the drawing board for now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, smells like failure

...with notes of pork and incompetence. Chums in the water lads, grab your CV and a few overly padded proposals that will still go over budget and never work as intended.

[Nafesy]

Shudder

I can smell the (now standard) whiff of failure already....

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Shudder

It lacks only the boilerplate "making the UK the bast place to use AI in government".

[SVV]

And the contract winner is.............

Capita AI

Fot the cheapest bid providing solutions in search of problems, just as long as the solutions can be tenuously packaged as "AI". Give a man a virtual AI hammer, and everything looks like a nail.

[Anonymous Coward]

But how will AI model

Backhanders & Bungs ?

[amanfromMars 1]

Double, Double Toil and Trouble ....... ?

Contracting authority .... The Minister for the Cabinet Office acting through Crown Commercial Service

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) as the Authority intends to put in place a pan government collaborative agreement for the provision of artificial intelligence services. The scope of the agreement will cover the following:

— general artificial intelligence services,

— discovery and consultancy work related to the use of artificial intelligence in public services,

— development, implementation and support of artificial intelligence systems in the public sector,

— data analytics using artificial intelligence,

— the development and implementation of intelligent virtual assistants and intelligent personal assistants.

The UK Government is seeking to accelerate the uptake of artificial intelligence services by government departments. ....... Prior Information Notice

Does all of that render opposition/competition/assistance to Dominic Cummings's Initiative

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it hasn't been invented yet...

So better get HR to reduce the minimum experience required to 5 years on the job adverts.

[EnviableOne]

Asking for it

A Government wonk from old Blighty

who thought their country still mighty

They ordered AI

from the Capita shy

they got ML stuf that was flighty