The world's first minister created by artificial intelligence is born in Albania

The Albanian government has introduced a 'virtual minister' created and managed by AI. The reason for this, according to reports, is that it will be able to zero in on corruption in public procurement. In short: people can't do it, let's hope for the machine.

It all happened in the 'classic' way: Prime Minister Edi Rama, while announcing the composition of his fourth consecutive government at the congress of the ruling Socialist Party in Tirana, introduced Diella, who on the e-Albania portal wears the traditional Albanian costume and will become 'the servant of public procurement'.

What has actually happened is that an existing digital assistant has been 'made minister', which since last January has been helping people navigate the governmental services of the state portal e-Albania, assisting them via voice commands with the full range of bureaucratic tasks required to digitally access some 95 per cent of citizen services. Her name is Diella, which means 'sun' in Albanian. She is female in short, complete with traditional dress and a conciliatory smile, although this obviously has no significance since she is a bot.

Since the system worked very well, it was thought that he could also take responsibility as a minister, i.e. deciding the winners of public contracts, thus removed from the personal interests of ministers in the flesh.

Diella will examine every tender in which the government enters into contracts with private companies and objectively assess the merits of each.