Amid zero reports of ministers appearing too human during television interviews, the government is looking to use artificial intelligence to help ‘improve’ communications.
Whitehall, the home of the British government, is using open source materials from Open AI, the firm behind ChatGPT, to create its own artificial intelligence chatbot, The Times has revealed. The paper claims that the tool, which has been in development since the summer, has been tested with mock tasks, such as “predicting potential questions before a media interview.” It adds:
The innovation is designed to make government communications slicker …
At a demonstration earlier this year, the prototype was asked to produce a list of potential media questions to help prepare a briefing pack, as well as a draft script for an internal meeting.
The move is not at all surprising from a government which is pushing AI into all schools, and which is led by a man who is comfortable with the idea of robots teaching his children and caring for his grandparents. It does, however, show that ministers have their priorities all wrong. Commenting on the news, writer Claire Fox said:
If only the Gov’s problems was comms. It’s what it’s (not?) communicating that’s the problem. And that requires far more than a technical fix.
