Changing Futures National Learning Event Conference

Artificial Intelligence & Multiple Disadvantage

‘It’s what you put in that counts!’

James Morton, Project Delivery Officer for East Sussex reflects on the recent all areas Changing Futures Learning Event.

The Changing Futures National Learning Event took place on the 16^th of September at Birmingham Conference Centre. This year the focus was on Artificial Intelligence and Multiple Disadvantage.

The Changing Futures Sussex Team were well represented with the Peer Navigators from the West Sussex Team, Social Workers from East and West Sussex, most of the programme team and Senior Recovery Worker from Change Grow Live. It was a great to be able to come together as a Sussex wide team away from the busy day to day work and explore and challenge ourselves, our perception of Artificial Intelligence, the impact it may have on how we work and most importantly how this may affect the people we work for. It was great also, to meet and listen to other Changing Futures teams represented from across the country who were also in attendance.

We were asked to reflect on our feelings about AI which resulted in a truly conflicting word cloud with reflections such as ‘Future’ and ‘Opportunity’ alongside ‘dangerous’ and ‘scary’.  

Stances about the use of AI were also tested at the beginning through an interactive questionnaire. Most participants recognised that AI will affect both our work and personal lives in the next 5 years. However, a majority had unsure or neutral feelings, closely followed by feeling slightly positive about AI, reassuringly the more negative statements were low. Peoples understanding and comfort with using AI was intermediate, however opinion of trust in AI was low and the votes reflected low confidence that AI will be well integrated into the public sector.

Presented by Neil McArdle founder of ‘The Good works’ which support non-profit organisations with AI and digital strategies, the conference moved to the discussion of how AI is being used and how it is relevant to our work. This explored why AI may feel risky, confusing and out of reach for people.

Reflections included the fear of not understanding it and the risk of ‘being left behind’. There was some helpful myth busting about the perceived lightening pace of implementing AI often cited to get funding rather than a reality. One of the most significant parts of the conference, I found was that at least 50% of participants indicated they already use AI however no-one could say that had seen their organisational policy at work!

Paul Christofides from Deloitte then presented a set of key principles developed in partnership with the National Expert Citizens Group (NECG), exploring the transformative power of co-production and its vital role in creating equitable, accessible, and impactful public services.

This underscored the importance of always deciding in advance how AI aligns with our organisational values and mission such as trust, transparency, dignity.  Organisational positioning questions need to be stablished such as; will AI mean more time being spent with the person or the system? And taking the approach that if an AI tool was being used on us would you feel, valued or observed?  

During the following panel discussion Katy Krysiak from Changing Futures Plymouth described the AI innovation they were testing to support ‘Team Around Me’ meetings to reduce the burden on front line workers to reduce the admin burden through auto populating templates and notes for checking. Steve Sounds representing the NECG reflected the views of the people with lived experience as initially sceptical but with a broadened understanding could see some advantages, but key to this would be training for key workers to use properly, communicate to people they support and translate accurately people individual stories.

The panel reflected that the most important thing to get right for organisations was to focus on value not cost and that AI is there to help and not to replace and the essential checks and balances in place ensuring the human element existed throughout.

The afternoon was spent working in groups.  We were asked to explore scenarios where AI could impact our everyday work. Reflecting on workforce, there were some discussions on how any AI tool to support processes such as live recording notes of meeting and if the client did not agree with them and how safeguards and senior oversight would be critical.

We then moved on to designing a poster of an AI tool that would benefit our work and life in relation to supporting those experiencing multiple disadvantage. Thinking about all the things we’d learnt, about how we have defined AI, what AI means to us, and the ethics and implementation of using AI within the context of multiple disadvantages, the Changing Futures Sussex Team created this.

The conference concluded with the opportunity for participants to reflect on our learning and how this may have affected our view of AI.  In comparison to the start of the conference, there was a moderate increase in participants feeling more positive about AI with more people understanding and feeling more comfortable with it, however still some pessimism how effectively it may be deployed within the public sector. I certainly left the conference feeling much more informed about AI and cautiously excited about how, if deployed and designed in an ethical, values driven and considered way, may open opportunities for creativity and enable front line teams to spend more time working with their clients experiencing Multiple Disadvantage.