Irony alert: UK.gov Work dept hires IBM to aid AI projects

The UK's pensions and benefits department has awarded IBM a contract that's worth up to £27 million to explore, deploy and support AI technologies to enhance its services.

The irony isn't lost on us either. A technology that is feared wipe part of the human workforce - if the hype is to be believed - is going to be used by a government department that helps get the jobless back to work.

Under a program the Department for Work and Pensions calls Nexus AI, IBM has been appointed as a strategic supplier to help with "the exploration, deployment, and ongoing support of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and services," according to a procurement notice published earlier this week.

The kind of work the Whitehall department might ask Big Blue to do includes so called "tech spikes," short term projects designed to explore potential solutions. Other buzzwords in the DWP lexicon ...