Personalized government, reality or fantasy?

Imagine, who reads this note, the following situation. Felipe and Lucía return home, happy, with their son newborn. They do not reach the baby in the Moses, when Lucia comes a message that the brand new parents read duo: “The government makes their congratulations reach Brian’s birth and communicates that the Renaper has already issued his ID, which will reach his home in the next few days. Also, for being the holder of the assignment for pregnancy, Anses has arranged to send the kit of the albricias plan for your baby and will pay your salary during the 60 days of pending maternity leave, which has already been informed to your employer. ”

Intrigued? Surprised? Consider then this other scene. It’s 7 in the morning you have a SMS With the following novelty: “Dear neighboring: We inform you that last night the resurfacing work of some streets of your neighborhood began, so collective 81 whose service you usually use, you have diverted your route. The provisional stop, closer to your home you can find it at the intersection of Bolívar and Catamarca Avenue. ”

Incredible? Clear, If instead of Argentina, you lived in Tallin, capital of Estoniathese types of situations would already be common in your daily life. There he could also receive, by electronic means, invitations to participate politically expressing his opinion on bills in debate, to register in a contest to opt for a university scholarship or to consider a change in the care of his illness, following the appearance of a more effective medical treatment.

«Argentina Year Green», We would have said once, old expression in disuse that we used to imagine a utopian countryunattainable, where everything works efficiently. And this is what is happening in some – still – places in the world, where technological development is achieving “customizing” the provision of government public services in a proactive way, that is, anticipating their delivery before the citizen or user demands them or, sometimes, even knows their condition of beneficiary potential. A personalized government is, then, the one who stops working reactively in response to a demand for collective and standardized services, and begins to act proactively, based on individual events that occur to foot citizens.

The current technological tools (Big DataInternet of things, cloud computing, automatic learning, artificial intelligence) make it possible. With the data available to people and transactions, governments can anticipate the choice of people to receive automatically and without requesting them, certain goods or services that, increasingly, reflect their specific needs. When the borders between public bodies are diluted and database interoperable, the data can «talk» to each other, generating evidence and automatic decisions about the origin of meeting certain demands or recognizing certain rights. It is a true revolution in public management, which invisible state intervention by converting its apparatus into a single service platform, where the virtuality of its “presence” is accentuated, and where the role of the citizen-user in the generation of its own vital and activity data, becomes the fundamental source to form its personal “public services” menu.

So, Automaticity eliminates single, four typical restrictions of a purely reactive government: the face -to -face intermediation of the public employee; the heavy bureaucratic procedure; the standard and uniform character of the service; and the need for purely human coordination, with its burden of error and discretion.

Of course, customization also faces contradictions: If services can only be offered from the data that citizens voluntarily share, how are they assured that these data will not be used for less lawful purposes? Informative manipulation and the growing frequency of cyber attacks in virtual space have created strong resistance in prospective users to publicly share personal data that reflect vital events, shielded in the right to privacy. It all depends on the assurances and trust that the governments themselves can inspire in the citizens. International organizations make important efforts for the strategic and ethical adoption of AI in the proactive provision of public services. The agreements achieved establish limits to access to them, setting repair and compensation mechanisms in case of damages.

Could we imagine a personalized government in Argentina? Let’s see. In mid -2024, at a press conference, President Milei announced that he would seek to make Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) systems «more efficient». And he mentioned that the company has a module (sic) to make state reform with artificial intelligence, «so,» he said, «we will be advancing in that.» While we do not know too much about ia or know how much “in that” has been advanced, there is something that we can affirm: the AI ​​has no teeth and does not work as a chainsaw. It does not destroy states but, paradoxically, it can make them invisible making them acquire a different “presence”, where citizens obtain their true leading role in front of the State, which is nothing more than its agent.

Achieving this requires a very different «cultural revolution» from the one that has been preaching from the government. First of all, the recognition that the State is the main instance of social articulation, the connective fabric of a society. There has been no human community through history that has not had some form of «state.» Then, admitting that the Argentine State has deformed and it is not about destroying it, using the magnifying glass to diagnose its deficits and adopt a long -term transformation strategy that, in regards to the construction of a digital society, will require much more than “an AI module”. It will not even reach the most sophisticated hardware, software and communications infrastructure. Because despite its exponential evolution, technology is only the trigger for a transformation process that essentially lies in human issues: norms and values, skills and knowledge, organizations and management, cooperation and strategic thinking. Digital transformation is just a catalyst for these fundamental issues. It requires the creation of solid foundations, of an ecosystem of solutions, services and processes of a new «era Govtech».

Inevitably, Build an ecosystem as achieved by leading countries (such as Estonia, Iceland, Singapore, New Zealand or Finland) demands to go through stages and depends on the degree of conviction and effort of governments, public-private collaboration or the idiosyncrasy of society itself. Each experience is unique and non -transferable, but it is essential to consider the citizen and their needs as a primary focus of attention, recognizing their diversity. The experience of these countries must constitute a lighthouse to guide the transition to a proactive, digitalized, equitable state model, surely less visible but never absent.