You probably don’t pay much attention to Albanian political news, so let me give you a quick summation of what’s going on over there. The Albanian government recently appointed an AI chatbot as a minister tasked with rooting out corruption in a government notorious for corruption.
As reported by ABC News Albania, the AI, named Diella, recently announced that she is now “pregnant.” Or, instead, Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that Diella is pregnant and is expecting 83 “children,” one for each member of Parliament. These aren’t flesh and blood babies, but rather digital offspring coded to serve as virtual assistance for lawmakers.
All of this makes it seem like the AI created them itself, though it sounds much more likely that it’s the doing of a team of coders whose work is being unveiled to the world in the most unsettling way possible.
AI Chatbot Minister Just Announced It’s ‘Pregnant’
The AI assistance will handle a wide range of menial tasks for lawmakers. Things like taking notes during sessions and even offering bits of strategy should elected officials want to outsource their responsibilities further—that way they can do even less than they’re already doing.
Diella is a glorified Clippy, and its existence probably has more to do with the theater of politics and projecting the illusion of modernization. Diella’s existence stems from Rama’s promise to purge nepotism from Albania’s government. The idea is to replace human corruption with machine impartiality, even though people like Elon Musk are living proof that an AI chatbot is only as impartial as its creators intended.
This is probably why the opposition party in Albania isn’t quite sold on Diella, as evidenced by the fact that during Diella’s inaugural address to parliament. If you missed it, members of the opposition party quite literally hurled trash at Rama’s cabinet in yet another reminder that all governments are a freak show; it’s just a matter of how the freaks choose to express their freakiness.
Whether this all represents a bold leap into the future or just a stupid novelty that we will all look back on with shame and embarrassment in due time remains to be seen. But I’m placing my money on the latter.
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