Diella, an AI-generated bot will manage and award all public tenders for government projects, aiming to enhance transparency and minimize corruption.
Role of AI in Public Service and Governance
- Enhanced Decision-Making: AI improves efficiency in healthcare, urban planning, traffic, and pandemic response.
- E.g., tools like RAHAT app optimize relief operations during disasters.
- Objectivity and Anti-Corruption: Automated systems reduce discretionary bias in welfare and service delivery.
- Public Interaction: AI chatbots and apps like UMANG manage large citizen inquiries and grievance redressal.
- Inclusivity and Accessibility: Platforms like Bhashini enable multilingual access to government services.
Issues with AI in Public Service
- Undermining Democracy: AI aids governance but cannot replace elected officials' legitimacy and accountability to public.
- Social Justice: E.g. a misflagged beneficiary in an AI-driven Direct Benefit Transfer system could affect access to welfare, healthcare, and justice.
- Bias and Discrimination: AI mirrors training data biases. For e.g. US predictive policing tools have targeted minorities disproportionately.
- Transparency and Accountability: Many advanced AI models operate as black boxes (non-transparent reasoning), making their underlying mechanisms opaque.
- Other Challenges: No clear laws to assign blame for AI errors; Privacy and data sovereignty issues, etc.
AI can be a powerful tool for efficient and inclusive governance, but it must function under strong ethical and democratic safeguards to ensure accountability and public trust.
