The Department of Administrative Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP), Hasanuddin University (UNHAS) started the first week of the semester with a Guest Lecture (GL) delivered by Karl Löfgren, a professor from the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand conveyed his presentation for approximately 35 minutes. Andi Ahmad Yani, M.Si, MPA, M.Sc as a lecturer at the Department of Administrative Sciences who hosted this guest lecture was very enthusiastic about the theme presented. This GL’s theme was Data Governance in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI): Challenges and Solutions, a scorching and interesting issue to discuss.
In his presentation, Prof. Karl began by explaining the global historical background starting from the 1950-70s, up to the development of digitalization in the current period. In his discussion, he tried to define that e-government focuses on channels and interfaces in delivering information and public services. He also quoted Norris (2010) who said that e-Gov provides electronic government information and services 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Although sometimes these changes are not maximized by policymakers, they tend to just be used as buzzwords or just jargon without being balanced with the implementation that effectively solves public problems.
Furthermore, Prof. Karl tried to divide 3 levels in discussing Information Technology. First, there was a broad discussion of the information society, where there were changes in society in the future in relation to technological advances.
This had implications for future work. Second, the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in society was developing in policy themes such as discussing access, accountability, security, safety and ownership. For example, data protection, social media, surveillance technology, digital/literacy divide, etc. Third, the use of ICT by the public sector has reached discussions about public sector service delivery, government information and data analysis, and public engagement such as Smart Cities.
This issue of public involvement was responded to by one of the lecturers at the Department of Administrative Sciences in a discussion session. Dr Ishak Salim, S.Ip, M.A in his question discussed the space for involvement for people with special needs. This raises big questions, in what process and how the category of disabled people can be guaranteed to be actively involved and voice their aspirations.
Finally, after about 70 minutes of Zoom Meeting discussion, the presenter closed it with the conclusion. Professor Karl outlined the opportunities and challenges in Big Data both in policy and public services such as public sector and private sector issues in data analytics (ownership, use, access). In addition, there are challenges in combining diverse data sources, also that Big Data and Artificial Intelligence m require the same quality standards. Things that also need to be anticipated are issues of privacy and surveillance, as well as the possibility that new forms or regimes of governance will emerge and how to overcome these challenges.