Albania Appoints an AI-Generated Minister to Fight Corruption

Albania has appointed the world’s first AI-generated minister, which has made its first speech to the country’s parliament promising to help fight corruption.

“Diella”, which means sunshine in Albanian, has been made responsible for public procurement and will handle decisions on tenders to private companies. The AI has been given an avatar of a young woman dressed in traditional Albanian clothing.

Serious Reason

While it may sound like a joke, corruption has plagued Albania and stymied its hopes of joining the European Union. The AI-generated Diella is aimed at curbing crooked contracts where public money finds its way into the pockets of greedy politicians.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, who made the appointment, says that Diella is “the servant of public procurement” and public tenders in Albania will be “100 percent incorruptible and where every public fund that goes through the tender procedure is 100 percent legible.”

“I am not here to replace human beings, but here to help them,” Diella said in an address to parliament. “Indeed, I have no citizenship, but I have no ambitions or personal interests either. I only have data at my disposal. I am eager to learn new information and I have algorithms at my disposal to serve citizens with impartiality, transparency, and without ever tiring.”

However, the appointment of Diella has not gone down well with opposition politicians who threw bottles and anything else they could get their hands on as the Prime Minister and the rest of his human cabinet in a bid to stop Diella addressing parliament.

“The goal is nothing more than to attract attention. It is impossible to curb corruption with Diella,” says Sali Berisha from the opposition Democratic Party of Albania. “Who will control Diella? Diella is unconstitutional, and the Democratic Party will take the matter to the Constitutional Court.”

Albanian people are already familiar with Diella because the AI has been the virtual assistant on the e-Albania portal, a digital platform for citizen services. Diella was developed by Albania’s National Agency for Information Society, using one of Microsoft’s large-language models.

Earlier this year, a judge was left unimpressed after a plaintiff attempted to use an AI-generated lawyer in the form of an avatar in a New York courtroom.