The "AI career coach called Bob" RE: DWP will use £1.3m robot to find people jobs in latest Universal Credit crackdown

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Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

RE: DWP will use £1.3m robot to find people jobs in latest Universal Credit crackdown

Please provide the names, addresses of the specific Jobcentres the DWP intends to pilot this "AI career coach called Bob" in. Please also provide the names of the developers or contractors who created this "£1.3m robot", as well as a copy of the tender documents used to secure any contract to deliver the "AI program"

If possible please provide screenshots of the platform from a user perspective (staff and and your customers) and details of precisely what Jobcentre customers/claimants' personal data the DWP will use to operate and run it and whether such Jobcentre customers/claimants consent will be required for personal data to be used?

With regards any Privacy and Human Rights impacts of this DWP "AI program", please provide a copy of any assessment you or others have undertaken or other information you hold that refers to Privacy and Human Rights issues in regards this "AI program" and "AI career coach called Bob".

Yours faithfully,

Frank Zola

Ref: The hi-tech AI program to match people with local vacancies will be tried out at several jobcentres
The new technology - whose developers have created an AI career coach called Bob - will be tested across England and Scotland from March 2022 in areas that have the highest ratio of vacancies to unemployed jobseekers.
The AI software is to be tried out at 20 jobcentres
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/mi...

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S. Gwilliam left an annotation ()

"Building on this information, the cutting-edge software will then make intelligent suggestions based on live local jobs market data. Using specialist algorithms, the AI service will recommend next steps, which could point jobseekers to a live vacancy or a local skills bootcamp to help unlock other careers and training opportunities."

That sounds exactly like the skills to job-matching computer algorithm used by the Work Programme some 8 or 9 years ago.
(Perhaps with the added step of pushing you for available jobs that you don't quite match).
Hardly cutting-edge, talk about reinventing the wheel.

freedom-of-information-request@dwp.gov.uk,

6 Attachments

Dear Frank Zola,

I am writing in response to your request for information, received 21st
February.

Yours sincerely,

DWP Central FoI Team

J Roberts left an annotation ()

Mims Davies' answer to a parliamentary question from Jonathan Ashworth included:

UIN 190930, tabled on 23 June 2023

'In 2022 DWP launched our Job Matching Pilot to test and learn how new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, might support jobseekers in all stages of planning, searching and applying for jobs.'

https://questions-statements.parliament....

Some people might be interested in this:

The Intelligent Automation Garage (IAG)

UIN 190931, tabled on 23 June 2023

https://questions-statements.parliament....

UIN 190878, tabled on 22 June 2023

https://questions-statements.parliament....

J Roberts left an annotation ()

Jonathan Ashworth:

UIN 191353, tabled on 27 June 2023

https://questions-statements.parliament....

'To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish (a) a list of the 20 Jobcentres trialing the use of artificial intelligence and (b) the evaluation of the trial once concluded.'

Guy Opperman:

'(a) The Job Matching Trial began in March 2022 and claimants joined until the end of August 2022 in the following 20 Jobcentre sites...'

https://questions-statements.parliament....