Robo-doc will see you now: Tony Blair backs AI medics and nurses as he brands civil service 'a conspiracy of inertia' that 'suffocates' innovation
Sir Tony Blair has urged Britain to embrace AI doctors and nurses as he said the world was 'in the foothills' of the biggest tranformation since the Industrial Revolution.
The former prime minister claimed AI could have an 'absolutely transformative' impact on public services by making them better, cheaper and more efficient.
He said, if he was in power today, he would be thinking about 'how you reorganise the whole government around how you embrace and access this revolution'.
The ex-Labour premier outlined how 'all the routine jobs' in Whitehall could be freed up by technology.
Sir Tony said it was 'absurd' the UK hadn't yet made NHS data available to harness innovation.
He also delivered a withering verdict on the civil service, claiming it was a 'conspiracy for inertia' with a 'genius for absorbing the impetus for change and suffocating it'.
A recent Government experiment with AI - involving 20,000 civil servants across 12 major organisations - saved officials an average of 26 minutes a day.
It showed how AI tools could free up Whitehall staff from 'repetitive administrative tasks' and deliver greater value for British taxpayers.
Speaking at the SXSW festival in London, Sir Tony said: 'We're in the foothills of the most transformative revolution since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century.
'Government's all about process, so you could use AI to speed up the process of the government, making sure that we do, for example, all the routine jobs of government much more efficiently.
'You could be responding to people in a much more sensitive, faster, better, more efficient way.
'If, for example, you're able to merge data sets across departments, you're going to save money.
'You're going to analyse, based on health data, in a way that allows you to make better health policy.
'And then, when you look in public services, you should be able to personalise education in the future.
'You could have AI tutors, you should have AI nurses, AI doctors. We are already doing a lot of imaging much, much better through using AI.
'It will make [government] much smaller, more efficient, cost less and give a better service to the customer.'
Sir Tony said AI was neither 'good' nor 'bad' but a power that needed to be harnessed responsibly.
He urged 'resistant' officials to embrace the new technology, adding: 'When I was growing up, people said the civil service was a Tory conspiracy.
'And when I got in there, I realised it wasn't a conspiracy for the Tories or for Labour.
'It's a conspiracy for inertia, it has got a genius for absorbing the impetus for change and suffocating it.'
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