Geordin Hill-Lewis won't grant Cape Town departmental management additional budget for salaries unless they implement AI

justplain said:
Forget AI, all I want in Cape Town is a pedestrian crossing that has a count down timer, rather than a stupid flashing red man leaving you with absolutely no idea how long you have before the lights go green for cars.

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Hi, Joburger here....

What is "pedestrian crossing"?
What is "count down timer"?
What is "flashing red man"?
What is "lights"?
What is "go green for cars"?

I are confused.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
One of our clients started on this path recently and got a rude awakening when tokens were exhausted in no time. LOL. Only couple of people (architect & some senior devs) have access to consume tokens now and that too after approval from top.

This token thing is going to be costly in my opinion, even if it seems cheap in the beginning.
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Try a $500 million bill.

 
vigras rojara said:
Perhaps the mayor could be replaced by AI too. "Mayor Claude" would save a few syllables and more than a few ZARs on catering.
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Don't joke, but I would be 100% in favour of an AI being responsible for decision making in government. You could easily start with local government.

1) Legislature has to pick a specific publicly available model that will be the brain.
2) The parties that have a majority produce a document that contains all the agreed upon priorities for a specific financial year. That document is then made public.
3) All executive decisions are then handed off onto the AI with that document in place that it must interpret. The AI has a scoring system that it runs for every decision to determine how close does the decision match the policy framework. If the decision falls well outside the framework, it refuses and sends back to the legislature.

Then: some cadre goes up to the AI and says: I want XYZ company to get the contract. AI looks at the details of said company, evaluates it against the framework and all the laws surrounding procurement, and then will say no.

The best part is that everyone else (so civil society, other parties) can run the same document through the same model again and context can verify that the same decisions would have been made. And you can keep track of what the exact output of the "official" model is, and make it completely public.

Would simultaneously end corruption and mismanagement overnight.
 
Hellteddy said:
if so, Seems he can't imagine the outcome of the headline "CoCT Mayor replaces people with ai". Instead of milking overstretched ratepayers or replacing staff with ai, he should be "living within his means" there simply isn't the money for his pet projects, even if they will do the city good.
Imo a good mayor, at this time, would focus on keeping things working while looking at cost cutting(that doesn't come with mass layoffs) and using those cuts to drop rates instead.
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I do think that's most likely the case. The issue is that article is a direct quote from him - and so its more a problem of him not getting the right message out.

"cost savings by leveraging AI" is very different to "we are spending money on AI rather than hiring human beaings"

There are a million ANC,EFF, VF+ knobs out to get him so ne needs to be weary of saying stupid ****
 
I am more convinced every day that stupid people make genuinely stupid use of AI, whereas the smart ones treat it as a force multiplier and profit.

Forcing people to use something without guiding them into good use is a disaster waiting to happen. Also, lacking good data, wisdom and context, it will helpfully lead them down the garden path, to trip and fall into the sewer, while reassuringly patting them on the back.
 
RedViking said:
What is sad and disapponting?
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Bro go have a look at the US right now and specifically around a company called Flock. Go look what effect data centres has local communities. That is the path we are now on. Enshitification of literally everything. Everything that makes our city great. AI and the companies behind it will ensure that the city is no longer ours and for us. Wake up.
 
Nerfherder said:
I do think that's most likely the case. The issue is that article is a direct quote from him - and so its more a problem of him not getting the right message out.

"cost savings by leveraging AI" is very different to "we are spending money on AI rather than hiring human beaings"

There are a million ANC,EFF, VF+ knobs out to get him so ne needs to be weary of saying stupid ****
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Cost savings is always the sales pitch. But that is never the outcome. The machine serves those that own the machine and nobody else.
 
I'm no doughboy ****rider, but where intelligence is lacking, artificial intelligence may help. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king after all.
 
It starts with Geordin introducing AI to run DA municipalities more efficiently. But ultimately leads to centralisation of power, national digital id regimes (which Geordin has stated he's is in favour of), tokenisation of public services, and central bank digital currency. Less freedom for all. Unless open source AI provides enough of a counter force to decentralise power?

AI will obviously make many things in life a lot easier, but the balance of power will shift even more to corporate and state monopolies. Every cent you earn and own as well as everything you do will be monitored.
 
As already mentioned, the big problem is management telling their underlings to use AI, but provide no guidance on how to use in their workstreams. "Use AI" can take many different forms.
 
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