Government website gets a chatbot helper, but beware of 'hallucinations'

It speaks a bit of Welsh, can recite the building regulations, refuses to say whether Rishi Sunak is better than Keir Starmer and will not explain the corporation tax regime.

- Robert Booth

The government is launching an artificial intelligence chatbot to help businesses chart the 700,000-page labyrinth that is the Gov.uk website. The system will be tested by up to 15,000 business users before wider availability, possibly next year.

Before you get started it warns: "The biggest limitation of AI tools like me is a problem known as 'hallucination'. This means we sometimes make up false information or facts but present them to you confidently."

But the solution, it continues, is to check the links to the website it provides next to its answers, which it fires back in about seven seconds.