Is Keir Starmer being advised by AI? The UK government won't tell us

Thousands of civil servants at the heart of the UK government, including those working directly to support Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are using a proprietary artificial intelligence chatbot to carry out their work, New Scientist can reveal. Officials have refused to disclose on the record exactly how the tool is being used, whether the prime minister is receiving advice that has been prepared using AI or how civil servants are mitigating the risks of inaccurate or biased AI outputs. Experts say the lack of disclosure raises concerns about government transparency and the accuracy of information being used in government. After securing the world-first release of ChatGPT logs under freedom of information (FOI) legislation, New Scientist asked 20 government departments for records of their interactions with Redbox, a generative AI tool developed in house and trialled among UK government staff. The large language model-powered chatbot allows users to interrogate government documents and to "generate first drafts of briefings", according to one of the people behind its development.