'A New Era of Bureaucracy': Austria to Implement 'AI' in Governance

Of course, it's advertised to 'increase convenience' and 'efficiency' while it will, likely, sharpen divisions and put everyone at the mercy of HAL-2000

I’ve written about ‘AI’ every now and then, and in many ways, this is a continuation of a few posts, including these:

Footnote: AI, ChatGPT, and all That

UFO/UAP 'Stuff' and 'AI'

Today’s posting brings more evidence of the rapid embedding of such ‘AI’ services in everyday life. As reported by Austrian state broadcaster ORF, the below piece is about the state bureaucracy of Carinthia, or Kärnten, which became the first such entity to implement ‘AI’ into its everyday affairs.

Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine, as are the bottom lines.

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State Government Relies on AI

Since Monday [23 Dec. 2024], artificial intelligence (AI) has been in use by the Carinthian state administration for the first time. With its help, applications for funding are to be processed more quickly, while also reducing the workload for employees. According to officials from Carinthia, it is the first and only federal state to use its own AI system.

Via ORF Kärnten, 23 Dec. 2024 [source]

At 8.18 a.m. on Monday, all employees of the state administration received an email stating that the AI called ‘KärntenGPT’ is now in use:

This marks the beginning of a new administrative era in our federal state, in the Carinthian state administration. Faster administration should primarily benefit the people in our province, for example by enabling us to process funding applications more quickly through the use of artificial intelligence.

Thus Governor [orig. Landeshauptmann] Peter Kaiser from the SPÖ .

Less Waiting Time for Applications

This applies, for example, to applications for housing subsidies and money for rooftop solar installations. What used to take up to a year can now be processed within a few weeks [huhum, ‘up to year’: why would that be? Are these files that thick or do the clerks works so slow?] ‘This is where we use AI so that subsidy documents such as invoices and order processing can be pre-checked by AI, thereby reducing the workload for the clerks’, said Christian Inzko, Head of IT in the provincial government [this is but the first such step, for once the inevitable start-up hick-ups are ironed out, no human will be involved: ‘open the door! I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do it’].

AI Cushions the Wave of Retirements

Artificial intelligence could also be used to compare, analyse and summarise expert opinions, decisions, and legal texts [which is, as of now and in my view, its only really useful application in administration; I wouldn’t bet on AI to reduce pork spending and grift, though]. This is all against the background that around 40% of state employees will retire in the next ten years—and some of their work will be taken over by AI [read this once more: four out of every ten state bureaucrats will retire before 2035, and I’d bet that most of them will not be replaced].

Data Protection Guaranteed [muahahaha: their words, not mine]

Data protection is also being expanded with the development of the state's own internal AI application. ‘We are not making ourselves dependent on big internet giants. This also ensures that the data of Carinthians is secure. They remain in the data centre of the state of Carinthia,’ said Kaiser [I’m unsure if this is ‘good™’ of ‘bad™’ because there’s plenty of historical—and current—examples of gov’t abuse: do I need to mention the Covid Passport/modRNA poison/death juice injection mandates?].

The state estimates the cost of creating this AI at 80,000 euros [or slightly less than two full-time employment equivalents; I’d like to learn about running costs, though, for I’m not convinced AI would be cheaper than human labour in the long run]. However, this would save costs in the long term. Despite the artificial intelligence, applications for funding can still be submitted in analogue form on paper [which is also how things are here in Norway, by the way: you have a legally enshrined right to live in the analogue world, yet let’s ask ‘AI’ once more if that’s ‘rational’?].

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Bottom Lines

Beware the ‘politicos™’ and ‘journos™’ bearing news.

A fully state-owned ‘AI’, you say? Well, the Kleine Zeitung, a regional paper, disagrees:

The decision was made in favour of the Llama model from the billion-dollar company Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp). It is freely available and is said to be one of the best on the market.

I’m sure there are no backdoors for intel services or the like in any of these programs. Data integrity and security? (eyes rolling) If an internet ‘service™’ is ‘free™’, you’re the product.

Once this trial balloon is up and running, the AI revolution won’t be stopped and, in fact, become unstoppable. As per the Kleine Zeitung’s next paragraphs:

Practical examples were shown during the presentation of ‘Kärnten-GPT’. For example, employees can summarise and analyse legal texts or expert opinions or compare regulations or acts with each other [so far, state admin jobs (sic) were quite well-paid due to formal university training requirements; AI will drastically reduce the need for graduates as no individual attainment or competence beyond reading will be required]. Major progress is expected in the area of subsidies. ‘Caseworkers will be massively relieved because documents from subsidy applicants can now be pre-checked,’ says [Carinthia’s Chief Digital Officer Christian] Inzko. For example, in the case of housing subsidies, ‘Raus aus dem Öl’ [move away from oil] or photovoltaics, there has been an enormous backlog of subsidies this year [it’s a different way of saying: so many more people applied for heating subsidies]. ‘In the case of photovoltaics, it’s primarily about digitalising and simplifying processes. There is currently still little AI involved,’ says Inzko.

The aim is to no longer have to check subsidies manually in future. Those who apply digitally should receive their funding more quickly from next year [so, no more denials of subsidy applications?]. However, applications can still be submitted in analogue form. ‘It is our principle that there should be no discrimination here’, says Kaiser.

And thus the perennial tug of war between ‘progress’ and ‘tradition’ will be institutionalised.

Still file paperwork or prefer cash over card payments? You’re an old fart (guilty as charged).

What the state gov’t is implementing—which will be done by other state and federal/national govt’s, too, before too long—is to create a two-tier system.

It’s convenient and fast—and my personal analogy is ‘convenience food’ that needs to be death-ray’ed in a microwave oven—but it’ll suck. Sure, venturing to the DMV or the like is never exactly fun, but now it’ll become a mark of distinction dividing families and friends, generations, and those who already know ‘da system’ vs. more recent arrivals (immigrants).

Moreover, courtesy of its ripple effects, this will create massive pressure for companies to offer ‘solutions™’ to customers that are ‘inter-operable’ with state-level AI environments. In other words: there won’t be any escape.

Once the subsidy systems are in place (which are optional), these ‘AI solutions™’ will be rolled out across the board. Now, I’m not claiming that this will be all bad and no good at-all (yet, we’ve run our societies without it so far), and it will further decrease the human qualities of everyday life.

That is, until a black-out, software glitch, or any other ‘hick-up’ makes all these systems stop working and, because we no longer have people with any leadership and other capabilities, massive mayhem will ensue.

Is there a single computer user who’s never had his or her device crash? I doubt it.

Also, case-in-point: I’m recycling legacy media reporting here because Carinthia’s linked official website is, well, see for yourself:

Epilogue

I was born in the early 1980s, and I actually remember the world before 1997, which was when the internet was commercialised. I think a lot of you, dear readers, also do.

Was it ‘good’ or ‘bad’? It’s hard to say, I was a child growing up in a relatively affluent, very safe society; I grew up with three brothers, we spent a lot of time outdoors, long summers at the grandparents in the countryside hanging around with my cousins. Typically, we were sent outside after breakfast around 7:30 a.m. with clear instructions to be back for lunch (albeit with washed hands and faces). No-one was needed to supervise us, control any (of the stuff we did), and the grown-ups knew we’d be alright.

Now I fear my childhood was the last generation of Westerners playing outside, which is both a sign of decadence as well as a morality play:

We watched that sweet movie ‘Babe’ (mid-1990s) last night with our kids. It was, of course, a movie but it shows the English countryside around 1990-ish, with tube TV sets, land-lines (the most ‘modern’ thing was a fax machine: my 7yo asked, ‘what is a fax?’), and no digital gimmicks and gadgets. When the movie was over, I said to my wife: this one feels like a trip to a long-distant past, and I’m in my 40s.

I can’t imagine how ‘ancient’ or the like such scenes must appear to our children and their generation.

Yet the most stunning aspect of it is its recent nature: the internet was commercialised in 1997 (incidentally, no sci-fi movie or TV series envisioned anything like it; same with drones, by the way: Captain Kirk uses shuttles to visit distant planets, not drones).

I remember my first cell phone—an unwieldy pre-paid ‘brick’—in the very late 1990s; calling someone cost a fortune, texts were limited to 140 characters. The first iPhone hit the stores in 2007.

Social media appeared on ‘smart™’ phones in 2012.

My children were born in 2014 and 2017, respectively.

They never knew the world before them.

What a strange time.

Very soon, I suppose the result of ‘AI’ in public administration has the potential to become a cross-over of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001—A Space Odyssey’ and the ‘Terminator’ nightmares.

I hope there’s a kill switch somewhere that doesn’t take the entire grid down.

On the other hand, though, perhaps the ‘great sorting’ means the parting of ways of the human family into a tribe that elects to forego many of these ‘civilisational advances’ whereas the other part of humanity will ‘live™’ in 15-minute cities supervised by AI and dominated by ‘Homo Deus’, Yuval Noah Harari’s blasphemous and anti-human wet dream.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with a reading suggestion: James Howard Kunstler’s World Made By Hand series.