Attitudes to tech, AI tools to check out and government data
Kia ora koutou ITP Members and supporters. Welcome to another week of exploring the ever-evolving world of technology! This week, I took a deep dive into the fascinating topic of public attitudes towards technology. Remember those days when every new gadget sparked excitement? Are we still enamoured with the digital world, well it could be a silent shift is brewing? Are the AI deep fakes and increasing scams putting us off engaging with tech? I keep hearing how frustrated people are at managing their increasing costs associated with apps and streaming services or doom scrolling forgoing sleep. It’s certainly not a straight forward issue. I do plan to test this out on The Panel RNZ, this afternoon - will be my last one at the 4pm timeslot which is kind sad, I tend of be in the gym by 6pm so am very unlikely to listen moving forward.
We were all sad to hear of the passing of Faanānā Efeso Collins, I have never met him but was inspired by his vision and views on child poverty. Kia kaha.
Seek job numbers are up in general which is good news, however the ICT job numbers are down by 5% in Jan and 40% on this time last year, which highlights the more gloomy outlook many of you have been sharing with me in recent weeks. You will also be pleased to know I finished my hiring process and have two part-time administration staff starting in the next week - yay.
Data Ventures - has been disestablished
Many of you will remember the ambitious goals Data Ventures, a division of Stats NZ, launched with. Mashing up telco data from the three major telecommunications companies as a neutral, trusted, government organisation, to solve a range of challenges facing the nation, was their first foray. One of the telco’s couldn’t bring themselves to hand over a dataset, but, the concept was tested successfully looking at tourist movement across the country - or something like that. I was involved in the establishing of Data Ventures as a mechanism to bring new ways of leveraging datasets and bring data into the public domain so it could be leveraged by businesses in a trusted open way, while providing leadership across the public service and potentially revenue for Stats. I continued to watch from afar and observed the tensions of trying to be an innovative, commercially focused body within the structure of a government department being realised - one of these things is not like the other springs to mind.
Stats have now announced the end of Data Ventures with no indication as to whether they have learned from the experiment or improved the ways they work as a result. Must say I am kinda sad the experiment failed, data is the new oil (or printer ink depending on your perspective) so finding ways to unlock datasets in a timely, accessible manner seemed like such a great idea.
Improving civil/public service data - Canada and the UK
In the UK they call it the Civil Service data challenge, in Canada the Public Service data challenge - same format and goals for both, “Civil Service Data Challenge invites civil servants to put forward your ideas for how government can improve its use of data”. With a 50,000 pound prize (sorry couldn’t figure out how to make the icon) on offer in the UK that can be used by winning teams for technical support and preparation for implementation of their solution.
Certainly something we should be considering here, there is no way Stats as functional leaders for Data can possibly know where all of the gaps, deficiencies, or locked up impossible to harness datasets live across the pubic service so why not empower everyone to help solve these challenges and unlock government datasets.
Blogs this week
Peter’s editorial today is - The effort required to overcome our productivity gap - covering Spark’s announcement this week on the opportunity for increased productivity through embracing AI technologies into every industry.
He also talks about one of my focus areas - We need to measure and benchmark our digital maturity at a national level - to quote “Part of the problem is that we don’t officially track the digital adoption of New Zealand businesses at a national level.” Totally agree.
Our guest blog this week - AI: a way to freely share technology and stop it being misused already exists - is well worth a read, “As with the free speech analogy, the freedom to share AI openly is a right we should hold dearly, but perhaps not absolutely. While not a cure-all, licensing-based approaches such as OpenRail look like a promising piece of the puzzle.”
Peter also wrote about AI earlier in the week - Will AI help or hurt the credibility of ESG efforts? - environmental, social and governance reporting. Why should we care? New Zealand last year became one of the first countries to require emissions and climate risk reporting by its largest companies, overseen by the Financial markets Authority. ESG reporting has also become highly valued by investors who are looking for progress in these areas before they will commit funding.
Technology fatigue is society switching off? My latest blog post on becoming more mindful of our use of tech, “slow tech”, detox retreats and “Zoom fatigue.
Brendan was quite taken by the public attitudes to AI news this week (behind paywall) with his cartoon - Deep Fake Red Flag.
AI tools I’ve played with this week
I met with some university researchers this week who told me about Atlas.TI so I have been having a play. So far it’s great for loading your data into your own closed model to gain insights across a dataset. Will update once I have used it in earnest.
You will have all seen Google’s announcement on Gemini, so far I have used it to rewrite text for blogs and documents - and I really prefer it’s results over ChatGPT, less “American” perhaps.
Events
GEN - global entrepreneur network - unconference in March in Auckland. If you are in this space it's a great event to network with other founders, investors, people who are developing technology products for good.
AI for Creative Industry event in Wellington - with speakers like Grimes this should be really interesting.
Fireside Chats - 3 coming up in March
- Fireside Chat with Kendra Ross - as scheduled in 2023, Kendra and I will be talking about all things Cyber Security, advice for the new Government and Ministers and what she thinks of our Cyber preparedness as a nation. Online, all welcome Wednesday 13th March at 4:30pm. Register here.
- Emily Blythe has also rescheduled for March 6th at 4:30pm, where we will discuss her Kiwibank Entrepreneur of the year award, the roles of mentors in her success and life as an entrepreneur. All welcome. Register here.
- Paula Browning from WeCreate is also joining me on the 20th of March at 4:30pm, we will talk about the convergence of creative and tech beyond gaming and multimedia, our education challenges in STEAM, and might get time to discuss where government could be focusing. Register here.
ITP Member events
Digital technology in the news
Articles behind the paywall on NZHerald if you can read them:
Finally
I completely ran out of time today. It's been a busy week meeting some amazing folks doing fantastic things with technology for their organisations and our society as a whole, I will be bringing their stories to you via the podcast and fireside chats in the coming weeks. Have wonderful weekends everyone. Ngā mihi nui Vic
