Governments are rushing to adopt AI. You should think twice

Governments around the world want AI to do more of the heavy lifting in public services. The plan appears to be to make things much more efficient, with algorithms quietly taking over the day-to-day running of a country.

For example, AI could help combat tax fraud by developing ways to target those most likely to commit crimes. Or it could be about helping public health services screen for different types of cancer, triage cases on a large scale, and flag those deemed most at risk.

But what happens when such a triaging system makes a mistake? Or when government agencies use AI to detect fraud and the model simply makes a mistake?

There is already sobering evidence that AI errors can have devastating consequences. In the Netherlands, for example, flawed algorithmic assessments of tax fraud were addressed in a way that resulted in families being torn apart and children being separated from their parents.

In this case, a risk assessment system was used to identify families deemed likely…