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Albania appoints AI official to fight government corruption [1]
['Séamus Bellamy']
Date: 2025-09-17
While the rest of us are worrying about artificial intelligence stealing our jobs, our intellectual property, or hallucinating bullshit that makes our lie-ridden world just a tiny bit worse, Albania has put a Large Language Model to work in a public office:
"Diella, the first cabinet member who is not physically present, but has been virtually created by AI," Rama said Thursday, according to The Guardian, and will aim to create "a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption." The task of awarding government contracts will be taken out of the hands of ministries and entrusted entirely to Diella, which Rama called "the servant of public procurement," according to Politico.
I'm not sure which is worse: a politician taking bribes, or one who can be convinced that insane bullshit is the way to go, with a few well-written questions and statements (although we have human politicians who are down with that as well).
That Albania, a nation known for its bureaucratic corruption, is looking to technology to address a problem in its government that its elected officials can't solve is admirable. However, I'm not sure that AI is far enough along the road to be trusted with the well-being of a democracy. We can't even plop out a citation or reference for academic purposes without buggering it up.
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[1] Url:
https://boingboing.net/2025/09/17/albania-appoints-ai-official-to-fight-government-corruption.html
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