Intentar ORO - Gratis
White Mail The DWP's automated letter reader
The Guardian
|January 27, 2025
When your mailbag brims with 25,000 letters and emails every day, deciding which to answer first is daunting.
When lurking within are pleas for help from some of the country's most vulnerable people, the stakes only get higher.
That is the challenge facing the Department for Work and Pensions as correspondence floods in from benefit applicants and claimants - of which there are more than 20 million, including pensioners, in the UK. The DWP thinks it may have found a solution in using artificial intelligence to read it all first - including handwritten letters.
Human reading used to take weeks and could leave the most vulnerable people waiting too long for help. But White Mail is an AI that can do the same work in a day and supposedly prioritise the most vulnerable cases for human officials to get to first.
Esta historia es de la edición January 27, 2025 de The Guardian.
Suscríbete a Magzter GOLD para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9000 revistas y periódicos.
¿Ya eres suscriptor? Iniciar sesión
MÁS HISTORIAS DE The Guardian
The Guardian
Benefits of joining EU's fund for Ukraine 'outweigh cost' - Starmer
Keir Starmer has said the benefit of joining the European Union’s £78bn loanscheme for Ukraine “outweighs the cost” as he argued the continent must move at pace to bolster its own defence.
3 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Kirstys of the world unite! Kent schoolgirl puts her name to cancer care fundraiser
Calling all Kirstys!
2 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Shropshire council staff 'abused' over removal of union flags
Residents, council staff and councillors have been subjected to rising “abuse, harassment and intimidation” directly linked to the removal of unauthorised flags, a local authority has said.
1 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Shipping Firms unsure whether new plan will make waterway safe
The world’s shipping industry has questioned if vessels will be able to travel safely to and from the Gulf after Donald Trump announced his latest plan to open the strait of Hormuz.
2 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Drug runners Enhanced Games dodges scrutiny but will have to face up to hard questions
The plan to fly to Las Vegas to cover what the Enhanced Games claims is the \"next frontier of human performance\" ended with a short email sent at 7.02pm on Friday.
1 min
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
'We must show it': Starmer to urge whole of society to fight rising antisemitism
Keir Starmer will call for a whole of society response to rising antisemitism today, saying it is not enough simply to condemn the scourge, but people \"must show it\" through their actions too.
2 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Kapoor says Venice Biennale jury should have fought to ban US over 'politics of hate'
Anish Kapoor says the US should be excluded from the Venice Biennale because of the country's \"abhorrent politics of hate\" and its \"incessant warmongering\".
3 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Move to oust PM could lead to 'chaos'
Cabinet ministers have warned mutinous Labour MPs that any attempt to oust Keir Starmer after a potentially disastrous set of election results would unleash chaos for the party that would not be easily overcome.
3 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Trial hailed as landmark for male fertility
A man whose testicular tissue was frozen before he underwent chemotherapy as a child, to be re-transplanted 16 years later, has been able to produce sperm in a groundbreaking fertility trial.
3 mins
May 05, 2026
The Guardian
Jeremy Bamber banned from talking to media from prison
Jeremy Bamber, who has served more than 40 years in prison for murdering five members of his family, has been banned from communicating with the media.
3 mins
May 05, 2026
Listen
Translate
Change font size