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The prospects of a different future

 A defining feature of freedom is that as the frontiers of society's knowledge about it are extended, new mysteries beyond the frontiers become the sharper focus. Post-1994-South Africa is entering a stage where its freedom is gradually getting unencumbered to individuals, institutions, organisations, and political parties that played a role in its attainment. The deeper society gets to experience the joys of determining its arrangements on how to govern itself, the more the democratic and constitutional order offers fears, conjectures, and hopes about what lies ahead. The sheer thrill of reconfiguring political power arrangements through a vote gives society greater insight into how democracy enables it to use the universal franchise to its advantage without being beholden to dogma, nostalgia, and ideology. 

In RSA, the prospects of the political system becoming vulnerable to the influence of individuals or personality cults who can create cataclysms are neutralised by the form and character of the Constitution. The cumulative advance of the constitutionalism RSA has painstakingly threaded requires new breeds of leadership and technical capability in symbiosis with context-relevant development theory and social justice insight. The democratic order faces threats from the national political economy and globally determined geopolitical interests. Still, it has not yet demonstrated a capability to control and forecast. Notwithstanding the resilience of its constitutional order to offer legal mandates to neutralise these threats, the capability of those in charge of the system still poses the most significant risk to the survival of the reigning RSA order. 

 

The potential of technological innovation, particularly artificial intelligence, is a beacon of hope for the future of public administration. With AI making significant strides in public service, there is a sense of optimism about the enhanced capability and creativity it will bring. In several service delivery areas, this capability might mean machine intelligence replacing, if not complementing, the human element with zero defects outcomes. The ability of AI to analyse vast volumes of data and rapidly manipulate and respond to complex inputs will create a convergence of service delivery needs and the algorithms through which the bias of politics is managed out of the system. The state might be compelled to cede several human responsibilities, not accountability, to AI despite the ethical limitations.  

 

The nature, form, and character of public administration will, in such a non-human capability context, be upended to include machines and the expertise they will be accumulating as artificial intelligence as a significantly influential part of the public service as an institution. The information-intensive organs of the state will not only have to be like other non-state institutions dependent on data of and about citizens but have the added burden of being better. Every significant aspect of politics, government, public administration, public service, and the public sector must be completely reimagined. 

 

Unlike before, where technology evolved slowly and linearly, allowing humanity to take along generations, the exponential pace of digital transformation and AI is different. The competitiveness of nations, mainly how their political and economic order is managed, is now a function of their human capital's depth of accelerating its acceleration. Paradigm-shifting, game-changing, nothing-is-ever-the-same-again corporate competence development of organs of the state will redefine what a capable state is. The pace of public service reform required to meet the annually doubling demands of the digital transformation era, the convergences of policy intents, and the undergirding technological requirements will have secondary effects. 

 

The transformative power of technology underscores the urgency of a new culture of government. Technology will save time and distance required to govern society. Data accuracy will give public policy and expenditure spatial expression, thus reducing blockages in the value chain of intergovernmental relations. State-wide planning will benefit from crowd ideation without the limitations of distance but with the advantage of context being part of the inputs to the centre. True models for planning will change district development approaches. As machine memory generates artificial intelligence, the costs of data and evidence-based planning will exponentially decrease and release resources for new areas of human development. The urgency of this cultural shift is apparent, and it is a call to action for all involved in governance. 

 

The release of time back to society will spur new genius in governance. The new networked governance system, a model where data and information are widely accessible, will break the traditional silos characteristic of state administration. This system, which promotes transparency and collaboration, will crumble the negative aspects of hierarchies and bureaucracies on innovation. Increased advances and discoverability of data, information, and knowledge will accelerate the culture of sharing ideas in the public sector. This will amplify the network effect on public administration, creating communication abundance, a condition precedent for building a competitive society. Enhanced communication and networks will shorten the time between idea and service delivery. 

 

The traditional notion of public service as a slow and time-intensive vocation will be replaced by an agile context required for competitiveness. This agile context will be a makeover environment characterised by flexibility, adaptability, and rapid response to change. 'The opportunities will be incredible for entrepreneurs, innovators, leaders, and anyone sufficiently nimble and adventurous'. Solving our societal woes requires technology, but it also demands one of the most significant cooperative efforts in history. The challenges we face might seem dire, but the solutions we already possess will only continue to increase in power. 

 

A collaborative effort between institutions of higher learning and the public service environment is not just a suggestion but a necessity to recalibrate the breeds of human organs of state, elected and appointed, to bolster the faltering state capacity and capability for long-term thinking. Long-term thinking should be predicated on the prevention of policy catastrophes. This should converge AI, network governance, and risk sensitivity. Acutely, the government must devise quicker response systems to change as a defining feature, attribute, or characteristic of its capability. This collaboration is beneficial and essential for the future of governance in South Africa, and our role in it is crucial.


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