Albania has appointed an AI bot to serve as a senior government official in charge of public procurement to help weed out corruption in the country. Called Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, the bot will award all public tenders involving the government’s hiring of private companies — a role historically vulnerable to bribery and threats. The AI minister will help make Albania “a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday while announcing his new cabinet.
It is the first time a government has publicly appointed AI to serve as a senior government official, and a broader test case for whether the technology can accurately and ethically handle the job — and do it better than a human. Roles like procurement that focus on cost analysis, rules, and oversight (rather than human-centric practices like building relationships and negotiation) may actually prove well managed by the technology. But AI can also be biased, and it is unclear what kind of human oversight or security measure Diella will have to ensure it remains neutral.