MySociety asks Robots and councils: how is AI being used by local government – and what can we find out about it?

Artificial Intelligence, as we know, is everywhere. For governments and public bodies, the possibilities for policy-making seem endless. As the UK government put it in its AI playbook ‘the potential of AI to transform public services is enormous, giving us an unparalleled opportunity to do things differently and deliver more with less’.

As with every other part of government, AI use has spread across local government in the UK. According to the Local Government Association around 70% of councils are now using them in frontline services, with almost all councils ‘using or exploring AI’ in some way.

What is less clear is what AI is exactly being used for, and how far advanced the work is. Are these experiments? Will pilots be abandoned? More importantly, how easy is it to make AI assisted policies democratically accountable? It is not clear how transparent and accountable these new AI policies are, or how they can be scrutinised.