‘AI clog’: UK public bodies battle onslaught of chatbot-generated complaints

MPs, local authorities, lawyers, schools and more are receiving floods of grievances, requests and legal challenges, often complex to read and respond to… “It started as a trickle in 2024 and now it’s an onslaught.” Hollie Wickens, a senior caseworker in a Labour MP’s office, is explaining the daily reality of dealing with surging volumes of artificial intelligence-generated correspondence. “Half the emails we receive are some form of AI,” she says, adding that this has made requests and complaints much more complex and time-consuming to read and deal with, despite her decade of experience in the role. “It is definitely more taxing.” At the start of this decade, applying for a job, writing a complaint or objecting to a local planning application typically required considerable effort: time to research a topic, fill in a form or write a formal-sounding email, with specialist knowledge often also required.

That was until the rapid growth of ChatGPT – which turns four later this month – Claude, Copilot, Gemini and other generative AI tools over the past couple of years. These chatbots are helping…