Leaving aside the issue of whether such a service needs to be centralized or to exist at all, if you substitute human evaluation for a set of algorithmic rules, a systems cracker can corrupt the entire cartel more easily than someone individually subverting possibly thousands of independent human actors.
In terms of many of the other services typically provided by government, yes, those could potentially be replaced by software.
But how about making it more lean? How about modernizing with the times? How about making it all much more transparent and accountable? Couldn't open source software do all of this?
We could start with systems that are used by smaller, poorer countries & grow from there.
A visa processing system might be a good start.