Albania names AI program Diella as minister overseeing public tenders

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on Thursday announced the appointment of an artificial intelligence program named Diella as a government minister charged with overseeing public tenders, saying the move will make procurement processes corruption free. Rama unveiled the AI "member" at a meeting of his Socialist Party following his party's decisive victory in May and said Diella will handle decisions on awarding contracts across the state.

Rama described Diella as the first government member who is not physically present but "virtually created by artificial intelligence," and he repeatedly said the tool would make public tenders "100 percent corruption free" and render "every public fund submitted to the tender procedure perfectly transparent." He said the process of removing tender decisions from ministries and entrusting them to the AI will be carried out step by step.

Diella was introduced publicly in January as a virtual assistant on the national e-government platform, designed to help citizens access services and documents online. Official figures cited by the government say the assistant has helped issue about 36,600 digital documents and provided nearly 1,000 services...