FEARS were raised today over the use of AI in the workplace, as the House of Lords discussed how “blind trust in technology” contributed to the Horizon scandal.

Labour minister Lord Browne criticised the government’s integration of AI into its operations, such as tackling benefit fraud, as the Lords debated the Post Office Compensation Bill.

He argued that AI is more complex than the defective accounting software Horizon, which led to the wrongful conviction of hundreds of subpostmasters. 

Lord Browne said that while Horizon can “precipitate shocks, confusion, misery and frustration, there is a risk that a far more complex system could produce more apparently coherent though equally unjust outcomes.

“In such a case, a pursuit of justice in the case of error would be more tortuous than that endured by the subpostmasters we are discussing today.”

Baroness Chakrabarti said the scandal “was at the very least, a very, very gross error involving maladministration, blind trust in technology, and we must take note in relation to artificial intelligence.”

Lord Browne highlighted a scandal in the Netherlands in which an algorithm wrongly accused thousands of child benefit recipients of fraud, disproportionately targeting ethnic minorities.

"Officials claimed that they had no way of accessing the algorithmic inputs and could therefore not describe why they were under suspicion,” he said.

“This echoes a Kafkaesque nightmare of the subpostmasters, accused by faulty technology, denied access to the very information that could exonerate them.”

There is currently no British legislation on the use of AI at work.

A TUC spokesperson warned that AI “is already making life-changing decisions over how people are hired, performance-managed and fired.

“Without proper guardrails workers are at real risk of discrimination and exploitation.

“We urgently need new employment legislation, so workers and employers know where they stand.”