Ombudswoman flags AI-assisted complaints as a second-term challenge

Erika Leonaitė, nominated for a second five-year term as Lithuania’s parliamentary ombudswoman, says the rapid rise in complaints prepared with artificial intelligence tools is a key challenge. LRT reported, citing BNS.

“Using artificial intelligence itself is certainly not a problem,” Leonaitė told the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, on Tuesday. But she said the tools can make it easy to generate large numbers of repetitive or minor complaints.

Devoting a disproportionate share of resources to such complaints could harm other people’s right to good administration, she said, particularly those who are less persistent or less vocal.

If reappointed, Leonaitė said she would work with the government, ministries and parliament to find ways to handle complaints more effectively while protecting human rights.

Parliament Speaker Juozas Olekas nominated Leonaitė for a second term, saying her work had shown she was capable of carrying out the role. The Seimas Human Rights Committee will consider her candidacy next.

Leonaitė has held the post since 2021. She said her office had handled about 5,500 complaints over the past five years, examining about 900 on their merits and helping resolve around 3,000 cases through mediation without a formal investigation.

She said common problems included formulaic responses from institutions, people being sent between different agencies and missed statutory deadlines. In some cases, officials were reluctant to take responsibility for resolving a problem, while cooperation between institutions existed in rules and procedures but not in daily practice, she said.

Leonaitė has a master’s degree and a doctorate in law. She has worked at Lithuania’s Constitutional Court and led legal programmes at the Human Rights Monitoring Institute from 2017. She has also been involved in research and teaching on human rights and international law since 2004.