AI agents are flooding public services with new requests

The advent of AI-powered tools is leading to a surge in public service requests across the globe. In the UK, complaints to the housing ombudsman have more than doubled since ChatGPT's introduction, reaching over 7,000 in 2023 from 2,600 in 2022. The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) experienced a fivefold increase in complaints over the same period. Similar trends were observed in Brazil and Germany, with judicial petitions and parliamentary submissions seeing significant growth.

Researcher Chris Schmitz is tracking this phenomenon, which he calls "agentic flooding." In a forthcoming paper at the AI Ethics and Society conference, Schmitz examines 84 cases of potential flooding across 11 jurisdictions, finding evidence that AI tools are reshaping how people interact with public services. The challenge now lies in determining the appropriate response to this trend.

While some of the new filings may be adversarial, many are the result of legitimate applicants using AI to streamline processes that were previously difficult. Schmitz analyzed various services, including welfare applications and judicial appeals, all of which have online platforms accessible to AI assistants. The paper does not explicitly state that AI is directly causing the surge, but most of the 84 cases show a pattern where submissions remained relatively stable before 2022, then rapidly increased as AI technology became more accessible.

Schmitz suggests that as AI becomes more prevalent and user-friendly, more individuals are finding it easier to utilize these services. The growth in volume is comparable to the influx of low-quality reports in bug-bounty services, where companies were inundated with submissions generated by large language models (LLMs) but still had to vet each report, causing significant resource strain. Public services may face a similar challenge, with a 5x increase in applicants requiring the same budget.

Schmitz emphasizes that the majority of these new applications are from individuals with legitimate claims. Before AI, these people may have been deterred by the complex application process, known as "administrative burden." With AI, this barrier is being lowered, potentially opening up opportunities to redesign many public services in an AI-friendly manner.

While the task is daunting, Schmitz sees it as a hopeful development, as it presents a chance to rethink how these processes function in the era of artificial intelligence.