Rama boasts that Diella has “helped more than a million applications” on the e-Albania platform. But his vision for AI’s government role is a lot grander than a mere chatbot. <\/p>\n
He talks of “leapfrogging” bigger, more advanced countries, which are still locked into “traditional ways of working”.<\/p>\n
Reactions to Diella’s new role are, understandably, mixed. The opposition Democratic Party has labelled the initiative “ridiculous” and “unconstitutional”.<\/p>\n
But others are cautiously optimistic.<\/p>\n
The founder of financial services company Balkans Capital, Aneida Bajraktari Bicja, notes that Edi Rama “often mixes reform with theatrics, so it’s natural people wonder if this is symbolism”. But she says the “‘AI minister’ could be constructive if it develops into real systems that improve transparency and trust in public procurement”.<\/p>\n
Anti-corruption experts have also noted the potential for AI to be deployed to minimise graft.<\/p>\n
“AI is still a new tool \u2013 but if it is programmed correctly, when you put a bid in online, you can see clearly and more closely if a company meets the conditions and the criteria,” says Dr Andi Hoxhaj of King’s College London, a specialist in the Western Balkans, corruption and the rule of law.<\/p>\n
He believes Albania’s rapid progress in EU accession talks and encouragement from Brussels to complete the negotiations by 2027 mean that the country has a powerful incentive to tackle graft.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot at stake,” he says. “The main precondition from the EU has been to address corruption. If [Diella] is a vehicle or mechanism that could be used towards that goal, it’s worth exploring.”<\/p>\n
Edi Rama does not deny that there is an element of a publicity stunt to his latest wheeze. But he insists that there is serious intent behind the playful presentation.<\/p>\n
“It puts pressure on other members of the cabinet and national agencies to run and think differently. This is the biggest advantage I’m expecting from this minister,” he says.<\/p>\n
In other words, ministers beware: AI could be coming for their jobs as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rama boasts that Diella has “helped more than a million applications” on the e-Albania platform. But his vision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-133705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}