Robodebt 2.0

Last article was quite thorough America bashing, time for a change of pace and something more close to home (I will rage against the fourth Reich later do not worry).

What is all this Australian bullshit?

Before we go ahead I have to explain some stuff about Australia you need to know to understand the problem. Here we have a program called the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), that provides funding to people with disabilities to pay for services assisting them. The program is rife with graft and is a prime example of the parasitic contractor state, but most Australians prefer having the dodgy NDIS to just leaving people with disabilities to die.

We also have Centrelink, out basic welfare system that provides a disability pension (different to the NDIS as it simply pays for day-to-day expenses not assistance services) unemployment support, student allowance, that sort of stuff. Enter Robodebt, a project of successive “Liberal-National Coalition” governments. As a confusing aside, the Liberal party in Australia is actually the right-wing of the two major parties, as opposed to Labor, who is… also right-wing but less so. This scheme would use an algorithm, what we today would probably call AI, to assess Centrelink claimants and recover any money given to them in error. This is a process what was previously handled by human staff. Long story short, it was a complete failure, demanding insane sums from elderly pensioners, disabled people and the unemployed. These 470,000 wrongly-issued debts resulted in people losing their home, their livelihood and even suicide. In a just world the people responsible would have met their end blindfolded against a wall.

We Never Learn Our Lesson!

Now the AI insanity sets its sights in the NDIS, with a new scheme being introduced to let AI assess and approve people’s plans. Now people paying attention await the horror stories of those who previously were assisted by the scheme being left to die. Ignoring the privacy concerns and the fact AI cannot possibly provide the human touch needed in personalising a complex plan for a person with complex needs, haven’t we danced this stupid dance before? Do we really have such short memory we can’t recall a scandal just six years old? I will be watching the situation closely for the moment where things fall apart.