Albania’s AI government minister: a portent of things to come?

Albania has appointed an AI bot as its new anti-corruption minister as artificial intelligence increasingly infiltrates the world of politics.

Known as Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, it’s hoped that the new AI minister will be “impervious to bribes, threats, or attempts to curry favour”, said Reuters

‘Sticking point’

Diella was originally launched earlier this year as an AI-powered virtual assistant, dressed in traditional Albanian attire, who helped citizens and businesses obtain state documents and reduce “bureaucratic delays”.

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Now she’s “the first cabinet member who isn’t physically present, but is virtually created by AI”, said Prime Minister Edi Rama as he unveiled his new cabinet. She’ll help make Albania “a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption”, he promised.

The awarding of public tender contracts is a particularly sensitive issue in Albania – it has “long been a source of corruption scandals”, said Reuters. Experts say the country is a “hub for gangs seeking to launder their money from trafficking drugs and weapons”.

Albania wants to join the European Union by 2030 and corruption is a “sticking point”, said Euronews, so the government is keen to be seen to be cracking down on it.

But not everyone is convinced Diella is the answer. “Even Diella will be corrupted in Albania,” said one Facebook user and another predicted that “stealing will continue and Diella will be blamed”.

‘Castle in the air’

A youth movement in Nepal this week used ChatGPT to choose an interim prime minister. After the chatbot “served up a list of potential candidates” on an online forum called Youths Against Corruption, the youngsters then asked it to “debate the pros and cons” of various stand-in leaders, said The Times.

Again, there are sceptics. To change laws “you need research, legitimacy and a real mandate”, a Nepali wrote on a forum, and “that’s not something you can just achieve using ChatGPT”. So although the “intention is good”, choosing a candidate with AI is “like building a castle in the air”.

Closer to home, MPs in Westminster are “frequently resorting” to ChatGPT to write speeches, according to analysis of Hansard, the parliamentary record. “Phrases such as ‘I rise to speak’ and ‘I rise today’, which ChatGPT regularly suggests as a way to begin speeches in the House of Commons, have surged since the release of the AI tool in 2022,” said The Telegraph.

Tory MP Tom Tugendhat accused Labour MPs of resorting to “an Americanism” that the British don’t use in their use of ChatGPT. But “keep using it, because it makes it clear that this place has become absurd”.