Albania’s Arrtificial Intelligence ‘Minister’ Diella. Photo: Edi Rama/Facebook.
Opposition MPs erupted in anger on Thursday when Edi Rama presented a ‘speech’ by his new AI Minister, an entity known as Diella, in the Albanian parliament chamber.
“I’m not here to replace people, but to help them,” the AI entity – an avatar resembling a woman wearing traditional Albanian dress – ‘said’ in a video that was screened to the legislature.
The AI ‘cabinet member’ is actually a digital assistant that will be used to reduce corruption, nepotism and conflicts of interest in public procurement processes, Rama said while presenting it to MPs.
The digital assistant is already being used on the state’s e-Albania digital services portal.
On Thursday morning, before the parliament session, Rama declared on Facebook that the AI Minister also now has a dedicated Facebook page and will take questions from the public.
“Hello, I am Diella, Thanks to my hard work as your assistant, I was elected Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in the new government. My mission now is to make the government’s work easier every day,” a Facebook video-presentation on the Diella account said.
Opposition MPs raged that the AI entity was a smokescreen intended to hide poor governance by Rama, who was returned to power for a historic fourth term in May’s general elections, with his Socialist Party winning 83 out of 140 parliamentary seats.
Opposition Democratic Party MP Gazment Bardhi, head of the opposition’s parliamentary group, said that “the truth is that Edi Rama’s Diella is a propaganda fantasy. Corruption and organized crime are the reality.”
“Diella is not a vision, but a virtual facade to hide this government’s gigantic daily thefts,” Bardhi declared.
Thursday’s parliament session was intended to be the forum for MPs to vote on the new cabinet and new government programme. Eighty-two Socialist MPs voted in favour of the new cabinet and programme, but opposition MPs did not participate in the ballot because they were protesting against the AI entity’s ‘speech’ to parliament.
The parliament session when the new cabinet is presented is traditionally a lengthy one, with discussions about the new government and each MP making a 10-minute speech. But Thursday’s session only lasted for 25 minutes amid the uproar over Rama’s presentation of Diella.
Political analyst Andi Bushati said the situation was “unprecedented” because of the lack of debate and the lack of contributions by governing Socialist MPs.
“Socialist MPs did not listen to the prime minister, nor to the ministers about their concrete objectives, nor to the opposition that might be made to them, but voted like sheep, creating an unprecedented situation in these three decades of post-communism,” Bushati said.