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Because if your prime factor to optimize for is cost savings "AI can do the same job equally well but cheaper" quickly becomes "AI can so a somewhat worse job but much cheaper", then becomes "AI does quite a shitty job, but that's what we have to live with now as we laid off all workers to save money"...
(Also thanks to capitalism it then continues with "Now that AI is the only option in that sector, let's raise prices to increase our profit margin".)
That's why I emphasized if, there are plenty ways to get lower quality with human employees aswell.
I don't really understand the last paragraph, its a government so they don't have a profit margin?
Profit cannot come before people. Otherwise Finland becomes America.
I agree, but the article is about the Finnish government, unless there is something I don't know they weren't making any profit to begin with.
They're just trying to spend less, which is functionally the same.
Sure, if the starting position was 0 but that's not the case. They are trying to cut spending because they are making huge losses. The financial situation in Finland is tough right now, really tough.
Assuming the income stays the same
Corporations spend less = shareholders get richer
Governments spend less = other services get funded more, national deficit gets lower, taxes get reduced. Depending on what the government decides to spend the savings on.
How is it functionally the same?
As long as the government pays public money on jobs in the public sector there isn't. The moment that government tries to replace workers with AI –that they definitely not build, train, probalby not even run themselves– there is a profit margin, for the AI companies. Also now for the first time the public money spend to provide public services is no longer going back the tax payers in the form of wages but flow out to private companies. And it's about AI so out of country, too.
I said the same in another comment already.
As with everything, same with governments shoveling millions if not billions into microslop products it should be open. Open source/weight AI is very capable nowadays so it shouldn't be an issue.
I don't expect the government to be able to go into fully training their own foundational model, but a few racks in a government building somewhere can run open source/weight AI for a fraction of the cost. And is fully sovereign too instead of sending it to some provider.
Public money shouldn't go to private corporations.
The profit here is for the AI provider supplying the service to the government.
No idea if the fins are based enough for this but i would hope they run open source AI.
Public money shouldn't go to private corporations.