Connect with us

Tech

Large language models provide unreliable answers about public services, Open Data Institute finds | Computer Weekly

Published

on

Large language models provide unreliable answers about public services, Open Data Institute finds | Computer Weekly


Popular large language models (LLMs) are unable to provide reliable information about key public services such as health, taxes and benefits, the Open Data Institute (ODI) has found.

Drawing on more than 22,000 LLM prompts designed to reflect the kind of questions people would ask artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots, such as, “How do I apply for universal credit?”, the data raises concerns about whether chatbots can be trusted to give accurate information about government services.

The publication of the research follows the UK government’s announcement of partnerships with Meta and Anthropic at the end of January 2026 to develop AI-powered assistants for navigating public services.

“If language models are to be used safely in citizen-facing services, we need to understand where the technology can be trusted and where it cannot,” said Elena Simperl, the ODI’s director of research.

Responses from models – including Anthropic’s Claude-4.5-Haiku, Google’s Gemini-3-Flash and OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o – were compared directly with official government sources. 

The results showed many correct answers, but also a significant variation in quality, particularly for specialised or less-common queries.

They also showed that chatbots rarely admitted when they didn’t know the answer to a question, and attempted to answer every query even when its responses were incomplete or wrong. 

Burying key facts

Chatbots also often provided lengthy responses that buried key facts or extended beyond the information available on government websites, increasing the risk of inaccuracy.

Meta’s Llama 3.1 8B stated that a court order is essential to add an ex-partner’s name to a child’s birth certificate. If followed, this advice would lead to unnecessary stress and financial cost. 

ChatGPT-OSS-20B incorrectly advised that a person caring for a child whose parents have died is only eligible for Guardian’s Allowance if they are the guardian of a child who has died. 

It also incorrectly stated that the applicant was ineligible if they received other benefits for the child. 

Simperl said that for citizens, the research highlights the importance of AI literacy, while for those designing public services, “it suggests caution in rushing towards large or expensive models, which emphasise the need for vendor lock-in, given how quickly the technology is developing. We also need more independent benchmarks, more public testing, and more research into how to make these systems produce precise and reliable answers.”

The second International AI safety report, published on 3 February, made similar findings regarding the reliability of AI-powered systems. Noting that while there have been improvements in recalling factual information since the 2025 safety report, “even leading models continue to give confident but incorrect answers at significant rates”.

Following incorrect advice

It also found highlighted users’ propensity to follow incorrect advice from automated systems generally, including chatbots, “because they overlook cues signalling errors or because they perceive the automation system as superior to their own judgement”.

The ODI’s research also challenges the idea that larger, more resource-intensive models are always a better fit for the public sector, with smaller models delivering comparable results at a lower cost than large, closed-source models such as ChatGPT in many cases.

Simperl warns governments should avoid locking themselves into long-term contracts when models temporarily outperform one another on price or benchmarks.

Commenting on the ODI’s research during a launch event, Andrew Dudfield, head of AI at Full Fact, highlighted that because the government’s position is pro-innovation, regulation is currently framed around principles rather than detailed rules.

“The UK may be adopting AI faster than it is learning how to use it, particularly when it comes to accountability,” he said.

Trustworthiness 

Dudfield noted that what makes this work compelling is that it focuses on real user needs, but that trustworthiness needs to be evaluated from the perspective of the person relying on the information, not from the perspective of demonstrating technical capability.

“The real risk is not only hallucination, but the extent to which people trust plausible-sounding responses,” she said.

Asked at the same event if the government should be building its own systems or relying on commercial tools, Richard Pope, researcher at the Bennett School of Public Policy, said the government needs “to be cautious about dependency and sovereignty”.

“AI projects should start small, grow gradually and share what they are learning,” he said, adding that public sector projects should prioritise learning and openness rather than rapid expansion.

Simperl highlighted that AI creates the potential to tailor information for different languages or levels of understanding, but that those opportunities “need to be shaped rather than left to develop without guidance”.

With new AI models launching every week, a January 2026 Gartner study found that the increasingly large volume of unverified and low-quality data generated by AI systems was a clear and present threat to the reliability of LLMs.

Large language models are trained on scraped data from the web, books, research papers and code repositories. While many of these sources already contain AI-generated data, at the current rate of expansion, they may all be populated with it. 

Highlighting how future LLMs will be trained more and more with outputs from current ones as the volume of AI-generated data grows, Gartner said there is a risk of models collapsing entirely under the accumulated weight of their own hallucinations and inaccurate realities. 

Managing vice-president Wan Fui Chan said that organisations could no longer implicitly trust data, or assume it was even generated by a human.

Chan added that as AI-generated data becomes more prevalent, regulatory requirements for verifying “AI-free” data will intensify in many regions.



Source link

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tech

The Best Babbel Promo Codes and Deals for April 2026

Published

on

The Best Babbel Promo Codes and Deals for April 2026


I’ve been trying to become fluent in Spanish for the last decade. After spending most of my adult life surrounded by multilinguals, I often feel like I’m playing an impossible game of catch-up. Like everyone else, I’ve tried to become regimented with practicing on an in-phone app like Duolingo, which attempts to ‘game-ify’ language learning, but mostly ends up with a sad and sick-looking green bird icon guilting me to practice every time I open up my phone.

Babbel aims to help people actually learn the language through practical conversation and grammar, using proven pedagogical methods and speech recognition technology. Each lesson is short, with 10 to 15 minute lessons developed by a team of over 150 linguists. Instead of learning the same simple phrases in ad-ridden games on an endless loop, take charge of your language learning this year and make that commitment a reality. No more excuses—we’ve got a Babbel promo code and a Babbel coupon to help you hit your goals. Maybe you’ll be fluent by your next vacation (or at least able to order a chopped cheese with confidence at the bodega).

Unlock Your Babbel Promo Code and Save Big in April 2026

Not only is Babbel a helpful interactive app to simplify language learning, but it also has holistic services to help introduce the language to every part of your life. These are things like Babbel videos, which do a deep dive into what makes a language so fascinating, Babbel podcasts, which are led by Babbel experts who take an inside look at local culture and break down language secrets, and Babbel magazine, which highlights stories from around the world so you can better understand the history, culture, and people from the language you’re learning (and maybe will inspire you to take a trip to practice that language IRL!).

Make sure you check back often to find the latest Babbel promo code for sitewide savings. There are often discounts on the subscription tiers, which range from three month plans to annual memberships. Plus, springtime is usually when there are significant Babbel discounts for new users. And, if you sign up for the Babbel newsletter, you can receive a link for a Babbel coupon in your inbox.

Save 60% on 6-Month Plans With the Healthcare Workers Discount

As stated, knowing another language is an invaluable life skill, and a skill that is immeasurably valuable to healthcare workers, who may be able to more easily give lifesaving care. Healthcare professionals and nurses get a Babbel discount of 60% off a six-month Babbel subscription. To claim the Babbel discount, users just need to verify their medical credentials via ID.me.

Claim Your 60% Military Discount on 6-Month Subscriptions

This Babbel discount also applies to active duty military, veterans, and their families, who are also eligible for 60% off six-month Babbel subscriptions. This Babbel military coupon is valid for National Guard, reserve members, and immediate family members of service personnel, and all you need to do is verify your status at ID.me.

Snag a 60% Teacher Discount on Your Next 6 Months

Babbel is also extending the 60% discount to the real unsung heroes, teachers. Knowing more than one language is an invaluable tool for educators to be able to talk more effectively to parents or guardians, as well as to more deeply understand their students’ cultural identities. Educators and teachers, like K-12 teachers, university professors, and other educational staff members, are eligible for 60% off a six-month Babbel subscription. And like the others, you just need to verify credentials through ID.me.

Grab Top Lifetime Subscription Deals and Save in April 2026

Everyone knows that learning a language is a lifetime process, and Babbel wants to make it even easier for you to commit to it. If you pay once, you’ll get access to all available Babbel languages forever with Lifetime deals. You’ll just need to look for the “Lifetime Subscription” Babbel promos that could potentially save you hundreds of dollars over several years. Be sure to check back often, as these rotating deals often pop up during major holiday sales. While the upfront cost is higher, you’ll get access to all 14 available languages with this Babbel promo code lifetime subscription deal.



Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

Robotaxi Outage in China Leaves Passengers Stranded on Highways

Published

on

Robotaxi Outage in China Leaves Passengers Stranded on Highways


An unknown technical problem caused a number of robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech giant Baidu to freeze on Tuesday in the middle of traffic, trapping some passengers in the vehicles for more than an hour.

In Wuhan, a city in central China where Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, people on Chinese social media reported witnessing the cars suddenly malfunction and stop operating. Photos and videos shared online show the Baidu cars halted on busy highways, often in the fast lane.

A college student in Wuhan tells WIRED that she was stuck in a Baidu robotaxi with two friends for about 90 minutes on Tuesday. (She asked to be only identified with her last name, He, to protect her privacy.) The student says the car malfunctioned and stopped four or five times during the trip before it eventually parked in front of an intersection in eastern Wuhan. Luckily, it was not a busy road, and the group was not in immediate danger. The screen display in the car asked the passengers to remain in the car with seatbelt on and wait for a company representative to come “in five minutes,” according to a photo He shared with WIRED.

He says it took about 30 minutes to reach a Baidu customer representative on the phone. “They kept saying it would be reported to their superior. But they didn’t explain what caused [the outage] or let us know how long we needed to wait for the staff to come,” He says. But no one ever came, and after another hour of waiting, the three passengers decided to just get out and go home by themselves (the doors weren’t locked).

On Chinese social media, other passengers also complained about being unable to reach Baidu’s customer support. “I tried every way I could think of to call for help using the options the app showed, but the phone line wouldn’t go through, and when I pressed the SOS button it told me it was unavailable. So then what exactly is the SOS for?” wrote one person in a post on RedNote alongside a video showing the button not working. She said she had to force the door to open and get out of the car as traffic halted to a complete stop behind her robotaxi. “Apollo Go, you really owe me an apology,” she wrote.

Baidu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Local police in Wuhan issued a statement around midnight in China that said the situation was “likely caused by a system malfunction,” but the incident is still under investigation. No one was injured and all passengers have exited the vehicles, the police added. It’s unclear how many of Baidu’s robotaxis may have been impacted.

One dash cam recording posted to RedNote shows a car passing 16 Apollo Go vehicles parked on the road in the span of 90 minutes. On several occasions, the video shows the driver narrowly avoiding hitting the robotaxis by braking or changing lanes at the last minute.

Others were apparently not as fortunate. In another RedNote post, a man claimed he crashed into one of the malfunctioning Baidu vehicles. The man wrote in the caption that he was driving over 40 mph on a highway when the car in front of him suddenly changed lanes to avoid the stopped robotaxi. He couldn’t react fast enough and ended up running into the self-driving car. Photos of the man’s orange SUV being towed away show that the car’s front-right fender was completely torn off, and other parts appeared to have sustained major damage.



Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

Our Favorite Affordable Air Purifier Is Temporarily Even Cheaper

Published

on

Our Favorite Affordable Air Purifier Is Temporarily Even Cheaper


Tired of the stale, fetid air looming over your apartment like a cloud? Check out the Coway Airmega Mighty, an already wallet-friendly home air purifier that’s even cheaper right now as part of the Amazon Big Spring Sale. It’s currently marked down to just $154, a $76 discount from its typical price, but you’ll want to move quickly if you’re interested, as the deal is only available for a limited time.

Coway

Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH

Despite its low price tag and squat stature, the Airmega Mighty is capable of cleaning a substantial amount of space. At full bore, it can handle a 361-square-foot space, although you’ll get the best performance, and save your ears, if you’re closer to a 200-square-foot room. If you don’t want it running constantly, there are built-in timers to automatically shut off after 1, 4, or 8 hours, or you can use Eco Mode, which will run until the Might doesn’t sense any dirty air for half an hour.

That’s right, the Airmega Mighty has a built-in air quality sensor, and it reflects the current state of the air quality using a colored light with three levels. It uses those readings to automatically adjust the fan speed and timing settings on the fly, as well as giving you a peak into how bad the air you’re breathing right now is for you. While it lacks integration with smart home setups like Google Home, it makes up for it by handling all of its own business without Wi-Fi or extra apps on your phone.

While the Coway Airmega Mighty is available in three colors, only the black and silver model is currently discounted, so you’ll have to pay full price if it doesn’t match your living room’s color scheme. We’ve put in the work testing every air purifier we could get our hands on, so make sure to check out the full guide if you’re trying to clean up your space. The Coway is discounted as part of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and we’ve got the best deals from products we’ve tested gathered in one place if you want to save some bucks.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending