Nadia certainly lives up to the promise of its subtitle: it’s an emotional rollercoaster of a ride through an ever-evolving landscape of politics, bigotry, and artificial intelligence (AI). It wrenches at our emotions, from exhilarating moments of excitement and hope, to chasms of profound anger and despair. I don’t think I’ve been quite so swept up with a book about technology since enjoying Clifford Stoll’s classic The Cuckoo’s Egg.

The backstory

Nadia was a ground-breaking Australian government initiative led by Marie Johnson. This is her personal, moving, and bluntly uncompromising account of what happened — the highs and the lows.

Described as “the world’s first artificially intelligent digital human for service delivery, co-created by people with disability,” Nadia’s purpose was to help those who rely on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for their daily support. It was an unashamedly ambitious and creative programme of social reform, driven with and by the needs of those NDIS was there to serve. In its collaborative, participative approach, Nadia stands in sharp contrast to most public sector “digital” initiatives.

The power of co-design

For a moment in time, before being killed off by “bigoted bureaucrats,” Nadia became a testament to the incredible power of co-design and the creative use of technology to enhance and enrich the lives of people with disabilities.

But this book is about far more than the groundbreaking use of technology — although Marie’s account of the successes achieved with the innovative use of AI is in itself a remarkable tale. Nadia showcases the benefits of AI when applied to well-defined domains — it’s a world away from the boasts of the tech bros busy touting their incoherent and copyright infringing, regenerative, text-based, hallucinogenic chatbots.

Nadia is a passionate, unashamed, soaring song for the soul of the human spirit and the creative and liberating potential of technology. A tale of how co-design empowered thousands of disabled people to become active partners in creating better outcomes.

Head-butting the bureaucratic dogma of “digital government”

Marie doesn’t pull her punches. Her descriptions of the reality of “digital government” programmes will resonate with everyone frustrated by their persistently pedestrian ambitions and vision:

“We are forced to continue to suffer a dystopian model of servicing and computing: horrendous traumatising complexity; impossible websites; inaccessible apps; tens of thousands of forms; and turgid bureaucratic language. Massive investments required in perpetuity to prop up this failing paradigm.”

What people with disabilities imagined and co-created with Nadia was the very opposite. Nadia challenged the predominance of the stale, decades-old model of moving forms and bureaucracy from paper onto a screen:

“We imagined and created natural contextual conversations. We designed guided conversations to replace the whole laborious and inaccessible concept of forms and processes, many now bastardised by poorly conceived ‘chatbots’. 

Humans learn through conversations. By copying. By mimicry. People do not learn by wading through complex websites and stodgy incomprehensible bureaucratic text, whether spoken or written. 

Creating systems that are more like people necessarily involved understanding the circumstances shaping how people communicate. 

We had to understand the servicing horizons and interfaces for people who communicate via brain activity, object recognition, signing, haptics and via immersive worlds. Nobody could be left behind or excluded.”

Leadership versus bureaucracy

All too often, digital initiatives are plagued by backwards-looking groupthink, the distorting lens of front-end interface design, and the endless recycling and rebranding of the tired web-centric dogma that’s predominated since the 1990s.

In contrast, the co-design and implementation of Nadia embraced participation, inspiration, innovation, and leadership. Good leaders don’t preach and impose. They listen, and they learn. They work with and alongside people who understand the problems to generate creative, insightful, and better ideas to solve them. And they consider both the risks and benefits of different approaches, feeling their way to more successful outcomes.

This participative, collaborative mindset helped Nadia soar. It created a vision and approach genuinely worthy of the description “digital transformation.” As such, Nadia was perceived as an act of heresy, non-conformant with the broken dogma of form-based, transaction-centric “digital government.” 

No wonder, then, that Nadia was shut down. An act of bureaucratic contempt towards the very people public officials are meant to serve. A shocking, bigoted denial of people with disabilities who worked effectively together to co-design a better approach. Amazon reviewer ‘OzRetiree’ eloquently expresses the impact of Nadia’s termination on their lives:

“Like many I was excited about a future where I could just ‘talk’ to government agencies and health bodies about my complex needs as a retiree with multiple chronic conditions. 24 x 7, taking as long as I need, and getting answers that made sense. Hope died along with Nadia.”

A beacon of hope

The story of Nadia illustrates how the principles of co-design and collaboration, empathetic leadership, and the smart, creative use of technology can combine to help rethink and improve public policy, public administration, and our public institutions. 

But you won’t find Nadia an easy read at times. As Marie warns in her Introduction:

“Some will find this a confronting exposé. And it is. Because in telling it, I have not hidden any of the ugly bigotry that we suffered.”

This honesty makes Nadia a compelling, human, and emotional story. And despite the dark and bigoted experience Nadia encountered, Marie’s vision and optimism still shines through, holding out the hope of a brighter, better future.

Nadia. Politics | Bigotry | Artificial Intelligence by Marie Johnson is available from Amazon. In the UK, you can find it here.

Transparency declaration: Marie was my colleague when we both worked at Microsoft (I left in 2009). We have worked together on papers and articles at various times, including The New World of Government Work. Transforming the Business of Government with the Power of Information Technology (2006) and A Tale of Two Countries: The Digital Disruption of Government (2014). 

I have a long-standing interest in how technology can transform the lives of people with disabilities, as you will know if you have read my book Fracture. This personal post also helps explain this interest.