UK Department for Work and Pensions accelerates use of robots – Government & civil service news

The UK's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is accelerating its use of automated systems to handle claims for benefits, in a move some fear will disadvantage welfare recipients. The DWP has hired nearly 1,000 new IT staff in the last 18 months, and increased spending to about £8m (US$10.3m) This new'virtual workforce' is to take over some of the jobs of humans. According to an investigation by The Guardian, which has unearthed further detail on the DWP's plans, one recent tender document requested help to build "systems that… can automatically carry out tasks without human intervention". As well as contracts with a number of multinationals, the department is working with UiPath, a New York-based firm co-founded by Daniel Dines, the world's first "bot billionaire", whose machine learning software is being deployed by the DWP to check benefit claims and detect fraud.