A government communications team has published a framework to help artificial intelligence identify official guidance, a task which human beings traditionally complete by finding somebody who remembers where it moved.
The ambition is simple: public information should be accurate, current and easy to discover. Delivery is more complicated because several pages are accurate about things which are no longer current, while the current page explains that further guidance will follow.
Staff have begun a comprehensive review. A spreadsheet records every document, its owner and whether the owner is aware of owning it. Several important policies appear to be under the continuing supervision of an empty email account.
An early AI trial confidently selected an obsolete page because it was written in clear English. The current version had defeated the system with a sentence in which no fewer than four organisations were responsible for nothing in particular.
Officials insist the new framework will resolve these problems by assigning clear responsibilities. Responsibility for assigning the responsibilities remains subject to discussion.
A concise public summary is expected once the technical annex has been agreed. In the meantime, citizens are encouraged to consult the official website, where the machine can now find the wrong answer considerably faster than they can.
