2024-08-28
Well, according to Big Brother Watch, maybe nobody. It might all be handled by machines. If not now, then soon.
Does anybody know how the AI works? Nobody accessible to the public.
"Black box algorithms and secretive AI tools sit at the heart of the UK's welfare system - with little accountability. Our investigation offers a glimpse into life inside the UK’s poverty panopticon"
So here's a simple enough question:
If the tools of the process are opaque and protected by commercial confidentiality, how can the process be accountable to the public that it is meant to serve? And if not accountable, how is a realistic challenge possible?
I have postulated before that government is simply a vast Artificial Intelligence encoded on paper into statutes rules and regulations (not to mention "guidelines") that are (or inevitably become) horrendously complex (as they are tweaked to cover circumstances not previously identified or envisioned). They are very likely beyond the time-and-comprehension space of the vast majority of claimants (not to mention the officials and administrators charged with implementing them).
But at least being written on traditional documents (and capable of being printed), the rules-regulations-guidance could be accessed by mere mortals and subjected to scrutiny.
Now in as much as they are at least in part encoded within AI algorithms and defended by commercial confidentiality agreements (not to mention inaccessibility within corporate servers), for practical purposes they have been placed well beyond public scrutiny.
Meaning in effect that we have become the servants of those that control the AI - i.e.: the corporate interests, given the nod by "our" government.
