Serious corrupt conduct and automated harm as a public service

"NACC investigation into Robodebt reveals public service corruption, but it will take much more to fix the system. The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has released its much-anticipated investigation into the six people referred by the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme."

"...The Robodebt scheme has exposed fundamental failings in our system of public administration. Public servants have lost power over the decades, with the rise of ministerial advisers and senior bureaucrats being in fixed-term contracts and in constant fear of losing their jobs. As a result, it is more difficult for public servants to provide “frank and fearless advice” – they are instead often focused on pleasing the minister. In the case of Robodebt, the public servants manoeuvred to put together this unlawful scheme that has caused significant harm to hundreds of thousands of Australians."

"The Robodebt scheme shows the rise of automation in government may lead to significant harm. Therefore, stronger safeguards are needed before we deploy such technologies." >>
https://theconversation.com/nacc-investigation-into-robodebt-reveals-public-service-corruption-but-it-will-take-much-more-to-fix-the-system-278076
#corruption #Governance #harm #AutomatedDecisionMaking #PublicService #RoboDebt #NACC #AutomatedGovernment

Technē without safety guardrails?

* "The public showdown between the Department of Defense and Anthropic began earlier this week after they entered into discussions about the military’s use of the company’s Claude AI system. But the talks broke down as both sides appeared to be unable to come to agreement over safety guardrails."

"US defense officials have pushed for unfettered access to Claude’s capabilities that they say can help protect the country, while Anthropic has resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/27/trump-anthropic-ai-federal-agencies

* The Pentagon strongarmed AI firms before Iran strikes – in dark news for the future of ‘ethical AI’ >>
https://theconversation.com/the-pentagon-strongarmed-ai-firms-before-iran-strikes-in-dark-news-for-the-future-of-ethical-ai-277198

* Who decides when a machine kills? When private companies are enforcing ethical constraints and governments are not, something is very wrong >>
https://www.euractiv.com/opinion/who-decides-when-a-machine-kills/

#ethics #OpenAI #BigTech #surveillance #AutonomousWeapons #ADM #war #KillerRobots #LAWs #Google #LLMs #Claude #Anthropic #transparency #accountability #AutomatedDecisionMaking #algorithms #AlgorithmicTransparency

Great website, via @sarahalsherif

https://tech-litigation.com/

detailing lots of case law on automated decision making

#ai #automateddecisionmaking #adm #dataprotection