By 2029, reduce bureaucracy costs by 25%, provide more public services online, and use artificial intelligence in governments and courts is part of Prime Minister Friedrich Merz's ministers who agreed in the past week.
The plan to integrate AI into daily use includes an online platform for export-based companies to bundle information about export restrictions and credit options, which uses AI to review applicant documents to facilitate visa processing.
The “modernization agenda” comes right after the similarly entitled “High-tech agenda,” as Minister of Digitalization, Carsten Wildberger, called it. The “High-Tech Agenda,” published in July by Dorothee Bär, Minister of Research, Technology and Space, highlights AI, along with biotechnology and microelectronics, as one of six key government-stimulated technologies.
AI Minister makes his debut
A more visible example of the government's recent AI push is the so-called Weimatar, the AI avatar of Minister of State Wolfram Weimer of Culture Media's Minister of State Wolfram Weimer. Weimatar can speak 100 languages and is promised to be an example of “fair AI that protects creativity and strengthens the democratic public sphere.” Its aim is to save time internally in ministry by not only allowing you to easily reach a wider audience on social media, but also by quickly training your ministry's training videos to keep you up to date.
Holger Hoos, a professor at the University of RWTH Aachen, does not believe that the technology is well understood by those in power to ensure the fair and responsible use of AI.
In 2023, a group of AI professor Humboldt, a distinguished researcher in the German field, met with policymakers to prepare a list of government ethical and useful AI proposals. This included the recommendation that governments are primarily guided by science in decision-making rather than business.
“The government has a moral obligation to follow competent advice. In many cases, it is not possible to follow advice from an industry that often benefits certain outcomes,” says Hoos.
At the same time, machine learning experts are adopting it as a good indication that Wildberger and the Digitalization Ministry have a central mission to improve Germany's lagging digital infrastructure.
Wildburger pointed out that if Germany does not accept AI more quickly, there is a risk of hopeless marginalization.
“AI is the key to future growth, and AI is in full swing. It's changing the world more than any technology before that and already does so,” he said. Funk Media Group. “If AI is not widely used, it puts more work at risk than if it were used bravely and responsibly.”
AI is widely used at the state and local levels. For example, in the southern part of Baden-Württemberg, there are plenty of offers available, from streamlining AI-texts to government chatbots in Ludwigsberg. The state government is also promoting the use of ChatGpt, owned by US-based Openai, to “optimize administration.”
Generated AI hype is already fading
Questions have also been raised on both traditional and social media about whether Merz's government is buying generative AI hype at the expense of more practical applications. Tech Policy News site Netzpolitik has accused the government of continuing Germany's reputation of being a time-based backdrop in the digital world. “In this way, the government is giving in again once again,” as well as generative AI hype,” they wrote.
In fact, businesses and governments around the world have already opposed the restrictions on things like ChatGpt, Dall-E, and AI generators, which are overgeneralized and sometimes inaccurate information. Experts like HOOS believe that if there is positive outcome for citizens of using AI in government, they should instead direct their energy towards optimizing processes through AI and problem-specific models.
“This is much more useful than asking ChatGpt questions. You can use AI to identify where you can optimize your bureaucratic processes,” which saves everyone time and resources. This includes fighting issues such as staff shortages as Germany is experiencing a decline in demographics. The aging population will make fewer and fewer people want to work in government, especially when working in the industry can be more rewarded.
He added that the process is inevitable in some way. “We expect that in 10 years, AI technology will be used for critical tasks at all levels of public agencies and government.”
Some of these types of AI models are already in use at the local and city level in Germany. The city of Cologne has a pilot project that uses AI for better urban planning and traffic management, but Munich uses it to create better garbage collection routines. In Heidelberg, the disease is being tried in hospitals to detect it early.
However, legal scholars and ethicists are still questioning whether the rush to implement AI at all levels of government has adequate surveillance and foresee the consequences of mistakes, particularly when it comes to its use in healthcare, the judicial system and immigration procedures.
“AI can act as a tool for, for example, preliminary exams and standard cases,” Law student Jan Christian Swoboda wrote on the legal news site LTO. “But human reviews are essential, especially when it's atypical or when it's very relevant to basic rights.”
Open AI/SAP transactions raise questions about German technological independence
Germany has strict data protection regulations that apply especially to the implementation of public sector AI systems. Personal data will not be stored more than necessary and should be protected from unauthorized access, loss or destruction. The data subject has the right to request information about which data is being collected and for what purposes the data is entitled to delete or modify data that was illegally collected.
Despite its promise of “sovereignty” through Germany-based cloud, Hoos warns that the deal announced last week between ChatGPT creator Openai and the German SAP software giant has created a “dependence on actors that we cannot completely trust,” and does not provide transparency such as whether we can access data generated by SAP's models.
“This includes public funds that should not be spent on questionable American technology, but rather building AI capabilities in the EU and Germany,” he argued.
As Minister Bell's “high-tech agenda” declares, experts warn that independence is important when Germany is becoming a leader in AI and is trying to integrate it into the management of home, healthcare and even justice.
Edited by Rina Goldenberg
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