The Guardian view on automating poverty: OK computers?

Pedro_P

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The use of AI and ‘welfare robots’ by governments around the world presents moral as well as technical challenges.

The government buildings in Newcastle where the Department for Work and Pensions’ digital team are based. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
▼ Across the world, governments are investing in machines that they hope will run their social security systems and other services more cheaply and effectively than humans. The Guardian’s Automating Poverty  seriesincludes reports from the US, Australia and India as well as the UK. The roles played by technology in these countries are all different. But taken together, the articles reveal how automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence are extending their reach into people’s lives through the delivery of public services.
As with all automation processes, speed and efficiency provide the rationale. But our reporting on systems such as those used in the US to collect  government debts, and in the UK to administer social security payments, gives cause for concern on several grounds. These include practical questions such as whether the new systems work, and particularly whether they are equipped to rectify errors and false results.
Given the suffering that even a single missed payment can cause to a vulnerable claimant, any glitches in such systems must be taken seriously. In the UK, there are numerous instances of universal credit (UC) payment problems linked to automation. One man ended up homeless after a computer stopped his payments on the basis of flawed data, a decision that staff appeared unable to override. In India, Motka Manjhi diedafter his biometric thumbprint key went unrecognised, leaving him unable to access the government food rations that he was entitled to. His family blame his death on starvation.
But even were such technical hitches to be ironed out, or  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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parivijesh100

Besides, it ensures that welfare reaches to right person without leakages.  It is difficult but doable using  AI, Block chain etc etc. Modi Government in India has demonstrated it.

abhidebb

It is a very hard reality which will adversely affect the poor people. Serious re-thinking is needed.