Civil servants in at least eight Whitehall departments and a handful of police forces are using AI in a range of areas, but especially when it comes to helping them make decisions over welfare, immigration and criminal justice, the investigation shows.
Rishi Sunak recently spoke in glowing terms about how AI could transform public services, “from saving teachers hundreds of hours of time spent lesson planning to helping NHS patients get quicker diagnoses and more accurate tests”.
But its use in the public sector has previously proved controversial, such as in the Netherlands, where tax authorities used it to spot potential child care benefits fraud, but were fined €3.7m after repeatedly getting decisions wrong and plunging tens of thousands of families into poverty.
The Cabinet Office recently launched an “algorithmic transparency reporting standard”, which encourages departments and police authorities to voluntarily disclose where they use AI to help make decisions which could have a material impact on the general public.
The Guardian then issued freedom of information requests to every government department and police authority in the UK to build a fuller picture of where AI is currently making decisions which affect people’s lives.
The Labour MP Kate Osamor believes the use of this algorithm may have contributed to dozens of Bulgarians suddenly having their benefits suspended in recent years after they were falsely flagged as making potentially fraudulent claims.
The original article contains 1,029 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Civil servants in at least eight Whitehall departments and a handful of police forces are using AI in a range of areas, but especially when it comes to helping them make decisions over welfare, immigration and criminal justice, the investigation shows.
Rishi Sunak recently spoke in glowing terms about how AI could transform public services, “from saving teachers hundreds of hours of time spent lesson planning to helping NHS patients get quicker diagnoses and more accurate tests”.
But its use in the public sector has previously proved controversial, such as in the Netherlands, where tax authorities used it to spot potential child care benefits fraud, but were fined €3.7m after repeatedly getting decisions wrong and plunging tens of thousands of families into poverty.
The Cabinet Office recently launched an “algorithmic transparency reporting standard”, which encourages departments and police authorities to voluntarily disclose where they use AI to help make decisions which could have a material impact on the general public.
The Guardian then issued freedom of information requests to every government department and police authority in the UK to build a fuller picture of where AI is currently making decisions which affect people’s lives.
The Labour MP Kate Osamor believes the use of this algorithm may have contributed to dozens of Bulgarians suddenly having their benefits suspended in recent years after they were falsely flagged as making potentially fraudulent claims.
The original article contains 1,029 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!