Mr. Barry Lowry:

It would be a hindrance to innovation and that is why, along with our colleagues in OGP, we are looking at a framework. I mentioned in my opening remarks that possibly the best way to do this is through a partnership approach, meaning that we would engage with a company that has expertise and could switch the AI products in and out. Those in the industry will all make a case for their own particular large language model but some large language models are much better in scientific-type experiments. Some are much better in Civil Service and admin areas. I would probably put Microsoft in that area, which is why it is being used.

I ask the Chair to indulge me if I go back on the other question as well. It is really important that we do not get infatuated with AI as a technology. We need to remember ultimately we should only be using it if it allows us to better serve the people of Ireland or to build companies that can grow the economy faster or whatever it happens to be. Particularly in our discipline, which is public services, one of the things we have been working with the Departments on is life events, where we have identified 193 services that are most used and most valuable to the public. We are working with the Departments on constantly improving those services and following OECD guidelines where Government is proactive. In other words, if Government knows someone has entitlement, why should they fill in a form? We should be getting people's permission to provide the service to them. When we talk about life events, that is what we mean - a more reactive and proactive government that understands people's entitlements when a baby is born and starts to activate those processes on their behalf. I imagine that AI will be part of the technical solution in many cases, but it will not be the be-all and end-all. Some of those are just good improvements to services, such as better content on the website and better forms design. We still have some services across public services where people download a PDF, print it, fill it in by hand and post it in. We need to move away from that as well as adopting exciting new disruptive technologies in the future.