Albania appoints world’s first AI-generated minister to fight corruption

Albania has appointed the world’s first AI-generated "minister," Diella, to oversee public tenders and ensure corruption-free governance. Prime Minister Edi Rama said the AI system will make public spending fully transparent as Albania pushes for EU membership.

Tirane: Albania has appointed the world’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated government “minister” with a goal to make the nation “corruption free.” Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the digital minister to his cabinet.

The digital assistant is named ‘Diella’ meaning ‘Sun’ and has been asking people how to navigate government services online since January. On Thursday, Edi Rama said, “Diella is the first [government] member who is not physically present, but virtually created by artificial intelligence,” Euro News reported.

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He said that Diella has been given responsibility of taking all decisions related to the public tenders, making them “100 per cent corruption-free”, adding that “every public fund submitted to the tender procedure will be perfectly transparent.”

Rama said decisions on who wins public tenders will be removed from government ministries in a “step-by-step” process. He stated that AI would ensure that “all public spending in the tender process is 100 per cent clear.” Since its launch, Diella has been captured as a woman wearing traditional Albanian garb. It is not clear whether it will continue to keep its current form.

Corruption in Albania is a major issue for the country, which aims to become part of the European Union by 2023. Albania was placed at 80th spot out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s corruption index which ranks nations based on their perceived levels of corruption in the public sector.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi co-chaired the AI Action Summit along with the French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. The week-long summit, which began with the Science Days on February 6-7, followed by the Cultural Weekend on February 8-9, culminated in a High-Level Segment on February 10-11 attended by global leaders, policymakers, and industry experts.

The summit featured discussions on critical themes, including greater access to AI infrastructure to ensure inclusion, AI for public interest, the responsible use of AI, making AI more diverse and sustainable, and ensuring safe and trusted governance of AI.