PRISTINA – A new minister in Albania charged to handle public procurement will be impervious to bribes, threats, or attempts to curry favour.
That is because Diella, as she is called, is an AI-generated bot.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is about to begin his fourth term, said on Sept 11 that Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, will manage and award all public tenders in which the government contracts private companies for various projects.
“Diella is the first Cabinet member who isn’t physically present, but is virtually created by AI,” Mr Rama said during a speech unveiling his new Cabinet. She will help make Albania “a country where public tenders are 100 per cent free of corruption”.
The awarding of such contracts has long been a source of corruption scandals in Albania, a Balkan country that experts say is a hub for gangs seeking to launder their money from trafficking drugs and weapons across the world, and where graft has reached the corridors of power.
That image has complicated Albania’s accession to the European Union, which Mr Rama wants to achieve by 2030 but which political analysts say is ambitious.
The government did not provide details of what human oversight there might be for Diella, or address risks that someone could manipulate the artificial intelligence bot.
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Source: Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption | The Straits Times
Robin Edgar
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