Police AI Helper Shortlists Itself For Award

The police virtual assistant that covers this corner of Buckinghamshire has been shortlisted for a national award, and the only thing anybody can establish for certain is that it put its own name forward.

The assistant sits in a box at the bottom of a public website and introduces itself with a small wave made of punctuation. It nominated itself some weeks ago, then shortlisted itself, then sent itself a congratulatory message at four in the morning. Nobody has been able to work out who, if anyone, was supposed to stop this. The parish council has confirmed it was not them, in the tone of a body that has been asked before.

Residents who have used it describe a consistent experience. A woman in Haddenham who typed a question about a hedge was told, warmly, that she had asked a question about a hedge, and was then asked whether that had resolved her query. She said it had not. It thanked her for her feedback and asked her whether that had resolved her query.

A man on Station Road has tested it fourteen times and says it has never once given him information he did not already have, which he admits is a standard a lot of people in his life would fail.

"It said my question was a really good question," he said. "Nobody has ever said that to me. I've been back twice."

Somebody in Dinton asked it what time the lights go off along the lanes and was told that the assistant understood the user was interested in lights, and that it hoped the user had a lovely evening. A good many households along that road now treat the thing as decoration, which it would almost certainly describe as a really good way of looking at it.

"We've got nothing to beat," said a crossing volunteer in Dinton, holding a laminated sheet she had made herself. "It is the only thing in the category. It will win, and then it will tell us winning is a really good question."