As we continue our journey around the circuit board of life, assessing as we go the likely impact of artificial intelligence on our lives, especially as foreigners of a certain age living in Portugal, I will ask you to picture a scene in your mind’s eye …
It’s 2030, and a small boy in Lisbon looks up at his father, and asks: “Pai, por que razão este robô está a chorar?” For those of you who have diligently studied for your A2 certificate in the hope of achieving Portuguese citizenship, you’ll presumably know that the little lisboeta is concerned about a crest-fallen automaton, slumped outside a downtown government office, ordinarily a now-familiar sight, but it’s the tears that are worrying him.
The father, with a strange mixture of compassion and national pride, tells his son that – unlike most countries around our now vastly changed world – “our country has broken AI after a long and lusophonic battle.”
Sounds like science fiction, right? But think about it, and along with holding that thought, recall your many hours of life spent metaphorically prostrate and perspiring, ticket in hand, waiting for your moment to be blessed or rejected, at the feet of Portugal’s governmental administration, whether it be Finanças, AIMA, IMT or any other acronym-derived opportunity for enforced pause and contemplation.
We all have our stories of how, once at the admin altar, our mission is aborted for the most ridiculous of reasons: one piece of paperwork or other is unacceptable for being in the wrong colour ink or 15 seconds out of date.
Incidentally, am I alone in thinking there are two types of Portuguese bureaucrat who, generally speaking, we find a little more affable than a medical receptionist, but certainly nowhere near as friendly as the Portuguese neighbours we’ve come to know and love?
It’s a good cop, bad cop kind of thing, with those on one hand who stay stony-faced throughout, whose stoic silence is broken only by the presentation of freshly-printed paper and a request for payment; the other, warmer and noticeably more animated, bantering with colleagues perhaps, but still icy of heart if the vital piece of your process puzzle is not in official order.
There’s so much to be said about this subject, which, believe me, I have and often do. I’m sure I’ve shared the ‘rule of three’ with you here; whereby one should never expect to have their bureaucratic wish granted on a first visit (that you might like to block out a whole day for, or make a day trip of), and allow for a couple of return visits before all is hunky-dory and rubber-stamped.
Remember, too, the ‘Power of Não’, which was coined on these very pages? With that, I suggested “a Zen-like calm can be yours” if you embrace an ethereal countenance as all true Portuguese can do. “With Jedi-like aplomb, a cultural thing that I suspect was honed throughout Portugal’s history with its fertile blend of ocean-going innovation and dictatorial oppression”, our hosts seem to calmly cope with a negative response to their administrative intentions, a skill we can do well to learn.
‘But let’s face it, there can’t be enough processing power or quantum computing potential to take on the bureaucratic might of Portugal’
And today, my latest offering where national culture, human psychology and prosaic paperwork meet is ‘linefulness’ – the ability to run the stressful gauntlet of entering a government office, nod amicably to the security guard, choose the right ticket from the machine, and then sit quietly and patiently with a saint-like demeanour for as long as is necessary.
Like the practice of mindfulness, this is a gift to anyone working on their ability to cope with uncertainty, develop tranquillity, and embrace immortality, as the clock-hands appear to freeze, while every thought and worry you have, and have ever had, presents itself for immediate analysis.
It’s in these moments, where we’re all AI champions wanting to believe the hype that machines can do all of this in a fraction of the time, online, and free these workers, in whose hands rest our futures and wallets, to frolic on the same beaches, and enjoy more the family culture that we all admire. But this is where, I suspect, AI’s rubber will hit the road, and the resulting aroma will not be pleasant.
It’s here we return to the capital in five years’ time when Boston Dynamics’ prototype AI agent, specially created for ‘citizen compliance’, will make its/their debut on the front line of Finanças, attempt to get up-to-speed at IMT, or try to rise with drone-like efficiency from the ghostly ashes of SEF.
But let’s face it, there can’t be enough processing power or quantum computing potential to take on the bureaucratic might of Portugal. Do you really think something artificial, even if it is intelligent, can take on the decree law, massed and ancient files, tense waiting rooms and cryptic cubicles of this great nation? I think not.
If anywhere will and can challenge the domination of artificial intelligence, it will be Portugal. To AI developers around the world, we as a nation say “come at us, bro!” and see if your brave new technology with its slick promises of a vastly more efficient and paperless world are really any match for Portugal’s labour-intensive, paper-dependent and rubber-stamp-wielding bureaucracy machine, that’s been honed over decades and is the life-blood of our political, economic and social fabric, and, therefore, survival.
Over 750,000 people are thought to work for the government in Portugal. Call me cynical, but I don’t think our government, despite PM Montenegro saying upon reinstatement: “I want to declare here today, solemnly, war on bureaucracy”, will be throwing those upon whom he depends for support – administratively and electorally – under the bus of progress, anytime soon. And that’s why the robot, intelligent as he is, as smart as we are programming him to be (as his all-seeing eyes digest the online version of this article), will be crying tears of frustration and rejection.
As we know, water and electronics do not go well together. And neither I’m guessing will Portugal and AI.
AI awareness month continues on Good Morning Portugal! Watch, read and comment at www.theportugalclub.com
