> Is the Economist seriously suggesting we should roll back workers and renters rights because AI makes it too easy for the average Joe to actually get those rights?

Yes, both of these pieces of legislation are extremely badly designed feel-good nonsense, which I personally hope will be shown to be so by an avalanche of claims automated by AI.

The employment rights legislation we have at the moment literally abolishes the market for labour - the final decision as to if your salary is "fair" is made by a judge.

Yes the economist is arguing that. Most of the rights of this sort were granted under the assumption that most people eligible for the rights would not be able to actually get them. If they can get them, that will be extremely inconvenient for politicians who will have to deal with a large deficit, by either cutting back rights or raising taxes on the wealthy, both of which are career suicide for a politician.

The article is suggesting that there was an assumed dynamic in designing these mechanisms for petitions and claims - that there is a threshold of cost (time and effort, mostly) that the petitioner is willing to pay for petitioning the government, and that this cost is, at least to some extent, minimizing frivolous or "lets try it even if it's a long shot" claims.

When the cost of such claims goes to zero, that assumed dynamic will no longer work.

> Is the Economist seriously suggesting we should roll back workers and renters rights because AI makes it too easy for the average Joe to actually get those rights?

I don't know about the Economist nor about the UK, but in the USA most programs that could benefit the poor are specifically designed to have very onerous processes to qualify and requalify with the intention of discouraging people from applying and to reduce success rate in obtaining the benefit they are on paper qualified to receive.

the economist is in the market for plausible-sounding prose. much like a large language model, the substance of the argument is a side effect.

A lot of "rights" were created with the assumption that they would be used sparingly and would never have been enacted if everyone was going to use them. You just don't have a working civilization if everyone is collecting disability, renters don't pay rent, and nothing can be built.

That would be on brand for The Economist.

I think of the legal system in the US. It's easy to find statements about how the entire legal system would collapse if people stopped taking plea bargains because nothing is actually funded or operated in a way that actually guarantees the right to trial in any practical way.

Of course they are, The Economist is to the City of London (the unaccountable pseudo-local authority that is effectively a lobbying group for banks) what Pravda was to the Soviet Communist Party. How dare the little people demand the same privileges the feudal aristocracy expect, as do the oligarchs assimilated with them?

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>which is arguably quite an effective way to distribute limited resources to the public.

I would argue in a lot of cases it isn't: especially in cases where the resources are intended to go to people who are struggling in some way. People who need the most help are often the least equipped to deal with the bureaucracy, while someone who is exploiting the system can happily jump through as many hoops as it puts up (especially when they're arbitrary rules that are encouraged to be applied without critical thinking and have very little correlation with the thing that is supposed to be being assessed). It might limit the number of people using it but it selects opposite to the desired result.

Let me see if I got this right: - I pay for stuff with my taxes - You add friction to how I access said stuff I paid for - You consider this an “effective distribution” rather than theft

I agree with the rest of your comment.

Exactly this. The overall productivity of not doing something should never be underestimated.

From another country but this is the excuse they use here with some paraphasing. "We have decided not to proceed with your complaint ... It looks like your complaint was generated by AI, it is large in volume and confusing. This is the final decision." This was after confirming every single law was valid, referenced, previous case history also properly referenced, added our points, etc. The funny thing is that they only mentioned AI use as a reason to terminate the investigation after many back and forward emails discussing points that they could understand quite well and we pushed back on. Our last response proved beyond a doubt that the opposite party (also another government department) lied to them. For another complaint for a another government agency straight away told us not use AI and use simple words and not to quote the law as that is not how its done in this country. However, we won that one right before telling them we would self represent in court after many back and forward emails with them saying don't use AI each time.

From what I see multiple government departments are already pushing back from people using AI when dealing with the government. I understand the dynamics, if the cost of exercising your rights go down, more people do it and their budgets cannot cope. However, you then abuse the rights of the citizens. Regulations are designed to protect the most vocal people or the wealthy. The most vocal people can start a revolution (or get another party elected) so need to please them while the wealthy are the ones in power. I don't know how this will play out.

> British state to ignore any possible volume of petitions

Do you live under a rock?

Lets consider something like the right to take sick leave. There is no strict definition of what "sickness" is. It is something that YOU feel impacts your ability to work. Maybe a bad nights sleep, sore back, headache, runny nose, bad tummy, etc. There's no need to provide any amount of proof to an employer when taking a single day off sick, and they need to pay at least the statutory sick pay, many companies pay full.

Most people agree that this rule works well in practice. Most people don't take a sick day because they don't feel 100%, even when its within their rights. If everyone decided to take Monday off because they're sick, that would be possible within the law, there's no need to provide proof you're sick. Yet, if that happened, the country would grind to a halt.

Now ask yourself, how could you implement that without eroding someone's rights and without introducing more friction?

Sometimes, you just have to assume that people are honest and won't take the piss out of the system. Or you have to introduce friction to discourage the exercise of their rights. The friction for sick leave is that you usually have to notify your employer ASAP and that you may have to fill out a return to work form.

They really show their hand in this one no?