Tag: ChatGPT

Vibe Coding, Fireworks and the Mortar of Government

June 3, 2025 / Benjamin Welby / 6 Comments

A few days ago, I lit the fuse on a working prototype of a government service. No team, no procurement cycle, no waiting for approval. Just me, a few prompts, and a handful of AI tools. And honestly? Fireworks.

Vibe coding (or vibecoding) is an approach to producing software by using artificial intelligence (AI), where a person describes a problem in a few sentences as a prompt to a large language model (LLM) tuned for coding. The LLM generates software based on the description, shifting the programmer’s role from manual coding to guiding, testing, and refining the AI-generated source code.
Vibe coding, Wikipedia

I’m not new to what’s now being called vibe coding. Over the last year ChatGPT has helped me to bring a few random ideas to life¹. Last weekend I thought I’d see what Codex CLI could do and I was again blown away. I mentioned this at work and in the conversation that followed we mused on whether some of the frustrations we’d been feeling could be shifted by trying the same thing there.

So I sat down with a laptop, some product instinct, and a handful of different AI tools. I wanted to see whether we could finally conjure the ‘fireworks’ we’d been waiting weeks to set off. I started with ChatGPT and the scale of the task was a bit intimidating. But then I remembered about Firebase and in minutes had something to show off. As I did, another colleague responded by asking if I’d seen Stitch, and another colleague said I should check out Jules.

And once I discovered Jules, that was when things got really interesting. Very quickly I had something live. Not a sketch or simulation, but something real. It’s up and running on Render (and I’d love to give you the link but I probably shouldn’t let it escape into the wild; at least not yet).

Obviously it’s just a prototype. But that also seems to do it a disservice. What is true is that it absolutely appears to do the job we had in mind. No engineers. No designers. Just me, some prompts and decisions, and it works, and it works in a way that will absolutely elicit the right sort of oohs and aahs.

I suppose I ought to make one small confession. I really shouldn’t have done any of this. Inside the department, everything except Copilot is blocked (and even then you only get Copilot on a Windows machine, not a Mac). Which means this burst of delivery joy has happened off network, off platform, and probably against better judgment. But that, too, is part of the problem. When the path of least resistance leads outside the system, it’s the system that needs fixing, not the people finding their way around it. Well, I would say that wouldn’t I?

Now, for our purposes as a team this exercise might be the perfect fireworks but more broadly for government, what are the repercussions?

I’m going to call it: Jules and Codex earn their hype.

Praying for representatives: US edition

December 9, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 1 Comment

Over the last year Dave and I have been kicking around the idea of “Kingdom Democracy” (or maybe kingdœmocracy) as we try to encourage our fellow Christians to adopt a hope-filled, faith-inspired perspective on democracy and how we’re governed. We haven’t quite managed to write the book yet, but it has been brilliant to take things that we know in our bones and put them into words.

It’s also been a powerful exercise in challenging me to put what I believe into practice at a personal level. That led to my prayer walk along the boundaries of the Croydon constituencies, the election night prayer watch party, the time spent praying for every one of our new MPs and subsequently trying to turn that tool into an actual product called PrayReps at Code for the Kingdom BUILD.

I was hoping PrayReps would be online by now. It’s not there yet, although good progress made with the underlying data. Going back to work has definitely slowed progress. So, no product on the internet but I did repurpose my old locally hosted ChatGPT-assisted code for the US Presidential, Congressional and Gubernatorial elections. Now, with the final result finally being confirmed at the end of last week I can finally publish this blog post.

It’s a blog post in three parts.

An elegant bronze scale stands on a cobblestone quay beside a calm river, with the British Houses of Parliament and Big Ben visible in the background. On one side of the scale, a woman in professional attire stands with her back to the viewer, symbolizing human values. On the opposite side, a digital figure illuminated with glowing blue circuitry represents artificial intelligence. The scale is heavily tipped in favor of the woman, showing that human values outweigh technology. The scene has a warm and optimistic atmosphere, with a clear sky indicating a pleasant spring or early summer day.

AI in government: it’s about people, not technology (as always)

September 13, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 4 Comments

It was our first week back for Vineyard English School after the summer break¹. Many familiar faces were absent, but one young Eritrean was eager to see us – he’d just received a letter about his asylum claim.

We were back in the hotel today after stopping over the summer (more volunteers would allow for doing this year round). Here's a photo of a letter that had been received by one of the hotel residents. Two native English speakers had to check with one another that we actually understood it.

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— Benjamin Welby (@bm.wel.by) 11 September 2024 at 18:13

The letter was dense, bureaucratic, and impenetrable. It’s a far cry from the aspirations for content design that so many advocate for as a central plank in reimagining the relationship between the state and its users.

He looked to us for an explanation. But even among the fluent English speakers, we had to consult amongst ourselves to ensure we understood it correctly. Hardly surprising, since according to The First Word’s readability test, this letter is on par with reading Nietzsche.

A visual display of book covers arranged by difficulty level, ranging from "Very Easy" (0-20) to "Very Challenging" (61-100). The cover in the middle, labeled "20 - 30," stands out in yellow and features the title "Beyond Good and Evil" by Nietzsche. Other covers represent a range of genres and styles.

The power of AI

I reached for ChatGPT.

No Neeeeed to trust ChatGPT, especially for your nostalgia

August 28, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 2 Comments

A familiar catchphrase, an unexpected blank stare

Our family has just spent a lovely bank holiday weekend with friends enjoying the National Coal Mining Museum, a tremendous 3-1 victory for Bradford City, a delicious curry at The Sweet Centre, some good church at St Peter’s Bury, and the splendid surroundings of the National Trust’s Shugborough Estate.

As we were driving to our first rendezvous in Wakefield, our friends, who live near Bolton, sent a message apologising that they would arrive after us. I reacted on our end with a loud “No neeeeed”, a catchphrase remembered from my childhood, delivered in an attempted Lancastrian accent. Christine, ever quick to capture a moment, got me to repeat the impression and sent it back as a voice note.

They replied with their own note, which we couldn’t decipher. So when we met up we asked them what was going on. To our surprise, they had misunderstood our message – they thought we were saying “Welbeeeees” as a greeting and had responded with a cry of their own family name.

I was puzzled. I was sure “No neeeeed” was a common cultural touchpoint but instead it was met with blank stares. Confidently, I told them it was a catchphrase from Mark and Lard, the iconic radio duo of the 90s.

However, when I tried to back up my claim with a quick Google, I hit a brick wall.

I used ChatGPT to improve the speed and accessibility of my WordPress blog

July 29, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 4 Comments

Adding ALT text is a good habit to develop. I can’t say it has become second nature but I do try. And I have definitely found it to be a great use for ChatGPT.

Since ChatGPT got vision capability it’s a very simple thing to paste an image and ask for ALT text. It’s usually very good. Although I was shaken when it casually described me as middle aged in this image. I suppose it’s accurate now I’m 40 but it was brutal to see that text appear on the screen.

Yes, it is an important habit to develop and an important principle to prioritise. However, I think it should also be something where AI can solve a real life problem in a very practical way. It feels like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp et al should fold in this functionality and automatically add ALT text whenever you upload a new image.

Be the change you want to see

So with that thought in mind I was very aware that I recently published a series of blog posts consisting of 140 images of slides detailing how to build a data driven public sector, the majority of which did not include ALT text¹.

I prayed for every single newly elected MP

July 7, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 7 Comments

A screenshot from a web application showing a hexagonal grid map of the United Kingdom completely filled with red heart icons, representing each constituency. At the top, it says 'Constituencies left to pray for: 0' on the left and 'Constituencies waiting for prayer: 0' on the right. In the centre, there is a message that reads 'You have finished praying for the 2024 intake of UK MPs.' Below this message is a green button with 'Amen' and a prayer hands emoji.

A different kind of party

Recently God changed my plans for election night and inspired me to spend my night praying for each constituency and every MP. So we opened up Boon Café and Zoom for a watch party focused on prayer over punditry.

After the polls closed and before the results started to come in we prayed and worshipped. I had planned to bring Post Its and give space to lament over policies and poor governance. But I forgot them. And that was a blessing. There was still space to mentally and emotionally clear our prayer decks without spending too long on the shortcomings of the past. Fixing our eyes on Jesus was a much better way to spend our time before the first result popped up.

When it did I was grateful to Philip Brown and Alasdair Rae at Automatic Knowledge for sharing the hex map in a number of formats. Every time we prayed for an MP we could add a heart to our A0 poster, as well as automatically to the web app I’d built with the help of ChatGPT and data from Democracy Club¹.