Google DeepMind’s 31 October PlanAssist update reports a 58% reduction in officer time spent on householder assessment tasks. The pilot ran with Barnet, Camden and Dorset councils. The tool checks application documents and drawings, looks at planning policies and site constraints, and drafts a cited report. A planning officer reviews it and makes the decision. More than 70% of the generated reports were accepted without edits, according to Google. Those two numbers answer different questions. Less assessment time is a productivity result. Accepting a report without edits doesn’t establish that every statement in it is correct. I’d want to see an independent check of the reports, including the ones officers accepted unchanged. The next test is larger. Twelve more councils are joining, bringing the total to 15 for a 12-month beta with live applications. The government’s update also describes staffing and process changes, so I wouldn’t attribute any eventual drop in total waiting times to the AI alone. Will the beta publish error rates and rework alongside time saved? That would make these results much easier to judge. Google’s report https://deepmind.google/blog/speeding-up-planning-decisions-with-ai/ Government announcement https://www.gov.uk/government/news/faster-planning-decisions-as-new-rules-and-ai-tackle-delays submitted by /u/nukebuddy
Originally posted by u/nukebuddy on r/ArtificialInteligence