“The Report into Robodet has shown that problems arose as a direct result of human decision making. The Report clearly states that there was no AI involved, just ordinary human decision-making applied at scale. Automated application of human decisions magnifies their impact, but they remain human decisions”, the Director of the Adelaide-based Centre for Augmented Reasoning, Professor Anton van den Hengel said today.
Prof Van Den Hengel was commenting on the release of the Report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme after recent commentary questioned the use of Artificial Intelligence in Government decision making.
“Let’s be very clear about Robodebt: there was no AI used at all in the operation of a scheme that was flawed at the very outset. The Report makes clear that Robodebt used income averaging to estimate debt recovery, which was ‘a patently unreliable methodology’. This is not just mathematically unsound, it has nothing to do with AI.
“The problem with Robodebt was a human failure at mathematics. Whatever the motivation, the maths used for estimating income was wrong. That’s a human failure, not an AI problem.
“AI would never have come up with such an ideologically motivated scheme, because it has no ideology. AI doesn’t have a political position, but it is very good at maths. If AI had been involved we’d never have had Robodebt.
“AI can help overloaded Centrelink workers be more effective and reduce queues. It can predict which courses or assistance might be best for which recipients, help people get the right services, and generally help create better outcomes for everyone involved. Instead of identifying how AI can help, we’ve labelled all AI in government as evil just because someone thought that adding Robo to a debt problem would get more attention.
“Much of the current fear of AI is baseless. The proof is that no one can tell you how AI is actually going to do any of the risky things people are worried about. People are afraid of change, not AI.
“AI is a set of computer programs that do what people ask them to. We all use them multiple times a day. Don’t ban the technology because anything can be used for negative purposes; should we ban kitchen knives because some person uses one to attack another? Always question the human motivation behind automation and there you will find the real culprit”, Prof van den Hengel said.
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