Kristen Gyles | AI makes it as a minister

A few days ago, the world reached a historic milestone – its first-ever AI cabinet minister. The Prime Minister of Albania introduced to the Albanian parliament, a female avatar dressed in traditional Albanian clothing, which he calls Diella.

Diella is now the country’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence and has responsibility for a new portfolio that oversees government procurement and the awarding of government contracts. The Prime Minister justified Diella’s inclusion in his cabinet by saying that her involvement will reduce corruption and will ensure that the procurement process is objective, fair and free from bias.

His rationale is that “Diella never sleeps, she doesn’t need to be paid, she has no personal interests (and) she has no cousins – because cousins are a big issue in Albania”.

In other words, Diella will not steal Albania’s money because she wants to buy a bigger house or a prettier car. Furthermore, Diella is expected to do what no (biased) human being can, which is to make perfectly unbiased decisions. Human beings are not devoid of subjectivity and may be affected, whether consciously or subconsciously, by external influences and pressures.

NATURE OF THE ROLE

What is interesting though, is the nature of the role that Diella now occupies. Once upon a time, it was often argued that artificial intelligence will only ever be able to automate rote and repetitive jobs that do not call for high levels of human judgement or creativity. For example, AI bots currently used across the corporate space answer telephone calls, route calls to appropriate personnel and answer customers’ frequently asked questions. AI is also used generally in data entry and email management. But as artificial intelligence becomes seemingly less artificial and more intelligent, roles that were once considered ‘safe’ from the AI takeover are now being automated. Who would have thought that the role of government minister could be performed by an AI bot? Can it?

The other question is, how many other roles in the Albanian cabinet will one day be filled by an AI-generated minister? If Diella can effectively run Albania’s new ministry responsible for public tenders, she can effectively run any ministry. And if she can run any ministry, her duplicate or triplicate can too. After all, decisions made especially at the national level, ought to be data-driven and objective. The implication here is that there is perhaps no role that AI can’t automate.

For completeness, this development in Albania has not gone without opposition. The parliamentary opposition has protested the use of AI in parliament citing concerns that the inclusion of an AI-generated minister is unconstitutional. The opposition says it will be taking the matter to the country’s constitutional Court. Furthermore, the selection of a virtual minister for this new role would naturally ruffle some feathers. The cabinet is essentially the Prime Minister’s top team, so his selection of an unreal, unhuman collection of pixels on a screen to occupy a key political role that could alternately be filled by any one of several highly acclaimed and accomplished political representatives is, in and of itself, unnerving. One can only imagine being second choice to an avatar on a screen.

AFRAID OF CHANGE

The truth is, however, that even good changes rarely go unopposed. Many of us are afraid of change. We can’t picture a world in which artificial people are making decisions for us. Furthermore, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the boundaries AI assistants will be allowed to cross. For example, will Diella participate in staffing decisions for the Ministry she heads? Will she be allowed to make changes to proposed legislation as Minister? Will she be allowed to represent the Prime Minister on official errands? Questions, questions. And it seems there are far more questions than answers.

The biggest issue here though is one that will never be alleviated no matter how much more improved AI becomes. No form of artificial intelligence will ever demonstrate certain distinctly human characteristics. Humans make moral judgements every day and are forced to make judgement calls, both consciously and subconsciously, even where there is little to no available information. We make trade-offs and concessions and sometimes do things that disadvantage ourselves so that others can benefit. We rely on emotional intelligence to sense when the behaviour of those around us varies, even slightly, and this is sometimes how we sense danger. We use intuition and discernment to recognize when we are being perceived negatively and we choose whether or not to adjust our behaviour. These are all concepts that are foreign to artificial intelligence but key in decision-making at the national level.

Either way, it is now a waiting game. Only time will tell how Diella will fare out in the Albanian parliament. If she does well, it will only be a matter of time before she has cousins making their debut in other parliaments across the world. Let’s brace ourselves for a trip down the slippery slope of AI advancement.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com