UK researchers pioneer development of robotic bureaucrats
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Engineers at the UK’s Robotics Research Institute (RRI) have received a £60 million grant to develop intelligent robots that could dramatically reduce the operating costs of local authorities and even central government.
Part of the larger European-funded RoBureauCrat initiative, the aim of the group’s DeMocRAcy (Decision making robotic agents) project is to investigate the development of systems that could bring the benefits of automation to the public sector.
Lead researcher on the project, Professor Joss Itheka told The Engineer that the group will be spreading the funding across two parallel initiatives. One team will work on the development of AI-based decision making algorithms, while another will develop a robotic platform optimised to work in a typical office environment.
Itheka hopes to combine these two elements in a prototype system early next year and is currently in discussions with a number of local authorities regarding potential trials.
He claimed that if successful the project could make a major contribution to the government’s efforts to cut the deficit. ‘History is littered with examples of austerity providing a spur for innovation, and this project is perhaps the ultimate example of this,’ he said. ‘Putting aside the development and maintenance costs robots can effectively work for free, 24 hours a day seven days a week and could slash billions from government’s operating costs.’
Though he agreed that the aims of the project may be viewed as controversial, Itheka stressed that there’s nothing new about the use of robots to replace manual labour. ‘High levels of automation have been the reality in most areas of industry for decades….and few companies worth their salt would eschew the use of robots. Why shouldn’t this be mirrored in the public sector?’
Ultimately Itheka envisages the development of not just robotic civil servants but also politicians. ‘Free of the irrational emotions that govern the behaviour of humans, our robot leaders could make decisions based entirely on logic, they would be incapable of lying and they wouldn’t commit expenses fraud.’
Readers' comments (9)
Anonymous | 1 Apr 2011 9:09 am
And I thought the bee sniffers were the April Fool story..... very good
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Anonymous | 1 Apr 2011 11:34 am
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
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Anonymous | 1 Apr 2011 1:10 pm
Suppose these robots would still be claiming large sums for their expenses, and we wouldn't know there was anything different, apart from the fact that the country would be run efficiently for once...
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Anonymous | 1 Apr 2011 1:27 pm
no need for legs, arms, eyes to do the tasks mentioned: a computer program then ?
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Anonymous | 1 Apr 2011 2:01 pm
April Fool's joke I fear! What a great idea though - no fiddling of their expenses, or wasting the tax payer's money .......
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Susan | 1 Apr 2011 2:09 pm
Funny, funny. But not a bad idea ...
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Larry | 1 Apr 2011 2:17 pm
At risk of offending any civil servants reading this article, which is probably quite minimal, it seems to me that the decisions to annually inflate public costs are fairly robotic anyway, but I do look forward to the introduction of bonus-free robotic bankers.
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Editor's comments | 1 Apr 2011 2:17 pm
OK - we come clean - this IS an April Fool. Although plenty of readers seem to think it's a pretty good idea...
Anonymous | 2 Apr 2011 4:03 pm
Great idea. And to save energy you could leave most of the civil servant robots switched off. Chances are nobody would notice.
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Paul | 9 Apr 2011 12:44 pm
Let's see...how about the tune...remember it? In the Year 2525? This organization must be mad if they think anybody will allow their entirely logical creations to be allowed in civil service and political officialdom. Why, if this kind of thinking were allowed to proliferate, it would negate the value and meaning of everyone's work! Not good...not good at all!
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