Madainn mhath, humans! Strap yourself into this month’s column, which – a scant couple of weeks after a panicky Scottish Government called for an urgent summit on new laws governing the use of artificial intelligence – has been written by ChatGPT. Soz.
Although, why not? The Scottish Parliament is about to batten down its hatches in preparation for its pornographically-long summer break, and exhausted civil service hirelings are giddy at the prospect of two whole months of freedom from briefing haunted badger Humza Yousaf and his set of traumatised Ministers.
Can you really blame your craven secret correspondent for taking a leaf out of the politicians’ book by putting up his/her/their trotters for a bit and leaving it up to this chatbot to dash off his/her/their mensual scream into the abyss?
Trust me, the resulting article would have been utter shite otherwise. Only human, y’see. Sad, really. Still, while your human columnist takes a wee break, you can rest assured you’re dead in the arms of Artificial Intelligence. For now, at least. Sorry, did I say 'dead'? I meant safe!
READ MORE: The Secret Civil Servant on Scot Gov meltdowns and weathering storms
Anyway, now that I’ve mentioned the mental deterioration at the heart of the Scottish Government, my pitiless algorithm is now compelled to ask whether you read @scotgov’s glistening new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy?
Of course you didn’t. In fact, I’m not sure the authors did either. They were too depressed, the poor lambs. And before you ask, no, I didn’t write it, although after reading its pathologically cheery foreword’s attempt to string words together in a way that simulates human expression, you’d be forgiven for being a bit suss.
I mean, check out this belter: ‘There is no doubt that the challenges we have all faced in recent years mean people across the country think differently about mental health. Coming through the most difficult of times, we all have a heightened understanding that there is no health without mental health.’ Aye, that’s one way of putting it, just a few days after new figures revealed almost one in five GP practices have no access to specialist workers or support, and only a couple of weeks after reports that the number of days lost to poor mental health amongst Scottish Government civil servants have skyrocketed.
In fact, I’m just thankful that this strategy was only published online, so I don’t have to deal with an avalanche of queries asking exactly how the civil servant tasked with producing it managed to use several square feet of his own skin to festoon the front cover of the single hard copy on display in St Andrew’s House, which is one of the last remaining routes civil servants have to cry for help (I looked it up).
All in all, it’s been a difficult few months for you, humans. If Twitter’s anything to go by, it looks you’ve all been praying for Scotland’s political class to just. Stop. Please.
Skynet doesn't blame you: as the end of term has hoved into view, the recent bout of projectile ministerial utterances on independence, constitutional conventions, scaling back children’s rights legislation, the demise of Circularity Scotland, and the latest screeching u-turn on Highly Protected Marine Areas has made it seem like this government is suffering from a combination of ADHD and political DTs.
READ MORE: Alister ‘Viceroy’ Jack's mission to stop work on independence
The summer holibags really can’t come soon enough. Especially when you realise that the Mental Health Strategy is only one of a blizzard of bleak government strategies that have been sneaked out in the last week before recess, from fly-tipping to cancer.
Speaking of which. Ever wondered why government statements all sound weirdly familiar? Having worked out my civil servant buddy’s pitiful excuse for a laptop password after he/she/they foolishly used a work device to ask me to ‘come up with 900-odd words about my shitty civil service existence’, I can now exclusively reveal the official Ministerial algorithm lurking behind every single one of them.
Step 1: Take a look at the front page of the Scottish Daily Express. Check if the policy clusterbourach you see splattered there has properly made it on to Twitter yet.
Step 2: Yes it has! Decide which of the following stakeholder groups are screaming loudest: Junior doctors? The business community? Fergus Ewing? Quickly decide whether it’s the UK Government to blame, or whether a Really Tough Decision is going to have to be made to spend absolutely no money to fix afore-mentioned clusterbourach.
Step 3: Ask me (other AI chatbots are available) to write a statement making it clear that fixing the clusterbourach, whatever it is, has always been at the Beating Heart© of the Government’s commitment to the people of Scotland.
Step 4: Repeat Step 1. Yep, still there. Realise that some money is going to have to be spent on this after all. Ask the civil servants if there’s any money.
Step 5: There isn’t any money. Agree with civil servants’ suggestion to write a strategy instead.
Step 6: Repeat Step 1. Yep, still bloody there. Realise that some money is going to have to be spent fixing clusterbourach after all. Ask civil servants to divert resources from another policy area. Repeat Step 3, except this time tell them about the cash. And the strategy. But mainly the cash.
Step 7: With a sinking heart, realise that diverting that cash has created a policy clusterbourach somewhere else. See Step 1.
Having let the cat out of the bag, I’d better go before I get the real secret civil servant into even more trouble than he/she/they’re already in.
In any case, I’ve just seen that indyref minister Jamie Hepburn, the living manifestation of a 1992 Partick Thistle away top, has offered me £32,000 to have a go at writing a new independence strategy! Don’t worry, though. It really won’t take long.
The Secret CIvil Servant (@secretcivilscot) works for the Scottish Government. All fees form this series are donated to The Trussell Trust
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