AI could replace thousands of civil service fraud detection jobs, minister says

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Artificial intelligence could replace thousands of civil service jobs in fraud detection, a Cabinet Office minister has stated.

Alex Burghart additionally stated the expertise could turn out to be the “institutional memory” of Government departments with a excessive employees turnover.

The minister was discussing the continued work to have a look at the place AI can be utilized to enhance effectivity, detect fraud, cut back error and improve productiveness in Whitehall.

Asked what this implies for the civil service workforce, he instructed a Centre for Policy Studies occasion: “We may not need to employ thousands of people to do fraud detection in the future.

“I hope we don’t. I hope that that’s something that we can make infinitely easier and cheaper for the British public…

“As we master this technology, you can certainly envisage a future in which you have a smaller civil service than you have today.”

The Tory MP for Brentwood and Ongar additionally spoke of the event of an AI pink field, by which ministers obtain essential papers.

“What it does is it can read documents that go into your red box, it can summarise them, it can highlight connections between papers, connections between previous papers.

“And over time, as we fine-tune this model, it will become, I believe, the institutional memory of the department.”

Staff within the Cabinet Office “don’t always stay that long,” he stated, which means the loss of individuals who bear in mind “things that happened three, four or five years ago”.

“But with an effective AI red box, that won’t be a problem,” he added. “We will be able to retain the experiences of previous policies and previous successes.”

The digital ministerial briefcase is being utilized by a number of ministers whereas it’s being fine-tuned, and as soon as prepared will probably be supplied to all colleagues, he stated.

The hope is that earlier than lengthy, the expertise can be used to summarise MPs’ statements within the Commons and spare the time officers spend on administrative work.

Mr Burghart stated: “We’re building these systems right now that we hope will enable us to go to the Treasury for the Budget in spring and say, ‘we are starting to prove the potential of these systems in Whitehall and help us go further’.”

The panel dialogue in central London got here towards the backdrop of intense political deal with the Post Office scandal, with the errors of the Horizon software program doing nothing to spice up public belief in massive tech techniques.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is keen for the UK to be a key participant in AI regulation, having hosted world leaders and trade figures at Bletchley Park for the world’s first AI Safety Summit in November.