24th July, 2026 – The New Zealand Listener was kind enough to publish my editorial on the way technology, and the shift of more government services online, is making it increasingly difficult for people to access the help they need. As a librarian I spend a lot of time helping people to navigate the digital world, and all the frustrations that go alongside.
When people are struggling to navigate systems which are moving increasingly online, they come to see us at the library. Librarians find ourselves spending less time looking for books, and more trying to provide digital assistance and social support. Take for example the elderly man who comes in late one afternoon. He has a green card from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), and has been told he ‘just’ needs to set a pin number before he can access the balance loaded onto it. Just. The word induces a sigh. In this context ‘just’ means things are going to be anything but easy.
I set him up on a computer, quickly realising that he’ll need more than being pointed in the right direction. Together we attempt to get him logged in – he has a password, or at least he tells me he does, but what’s written on his much-folded scrap of paper is only four characters long, and the portal doesn’t accept it. He’s having trouble seeing the screen, has told me already that his eyesight isn’t good, but gets angry when I try to read him what it says. We make it through creating a new login, finally get to the ‘set a pin’ stage. The pin has to be entered twice. The pins don’t match.
The man starts swearing at me, apologises, tells me it’s “the f**king system”. As he gets louder, I can feel our security guard moving closer in my periphery, ready to step in if I need help. But the man in front of me has every right to be frustrated – he’s not stupid, and wants me to know it, despite a process he doesn’t understand and which is doing nothing but make him feel stupid. His rage feels like a small way for him to drag back some dignity, unpleasant as it is to witness.
Eventually we get a pin set. He pauses in his rant to thank me, then continues on, now expounding on The System’s failings to our security guard. I’m relieved to walk away, and frustrated that I couldn’t do more for him.
The recent parliamentary debate on legislation that will allow MSD to hand more of its operations over to AI has me bracing myself for an increased wave of customer interactions like this one. We’ve seen it before when systems change, and new supposedly ‘better’ tech leaves the digitally illiterate floundering. Sure, AI might be able to automate the decision making process for welfare payments (although whether it should be allowed to do so is another issue), but people don’t only need a tick in the box approving their benefit. They also need a human to sit with them through the process, help them understand what they need to do next, and most importantly show them some respect.
How are people supposed to feel like, well, people, if they have to deal with a system that’s reducing its own people in favour of computers? If decisions that affect their lives are made automatically, and there’s no one to help them when things aren’t working? The shift to artificial intelligence might seem efficient for MSD, but it’s only going to make things harder for the communities they are meant to serve. It will be down to others to keep trying to fill those gaps to the best of our limited abilities: when people need help and can’t get it from a human at MSD, they will keep coming to see the humans at the library instead.
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