Back in 2017, I wrote about Sophia, the humanoid robot who became a Saudi citizen. Yes, for those who don’t remember or didn’t know, it happened. 

It felt absurd, but important. Sophia showed us what happens when machines cross into spaces once reserved for humans. She was theater, yes—but theater that changed the debate.

Now, in 2025, the theater has become reality. Albania has appointed an AI minister named Diella. Unlike Sophia, Diella isn’t a publicity stunt. She runs public procurement—the system that decides who wins contracts and where government money goes.

We’ve gone from robot citizens to algorithmic ministers.

Diella: A Digital Sun in Government

Diella (her name means “sun”) is not a robot. 

She’s a digital human representation, dressed in traditional Albanian clothing which began humbly as a service assistant on the e-Albania platform, guiding users through forms. Now she has leapfrogged straight into the cabinet. Meritocracy? Technocracy? Not sure…

But talk about a career jump: most civil servants spend decades climbing the bureaucracy—Diella went from customer support to minister in under a year.

Prime Minister Edi Rama introduced her as the end of corruption in tenders:

“Albania will be a country where public tenders are 100% incorruptible.”

The message is simple. Diella, an AI powered digital system cannot be bribed. She has no favors to repay nor other temptations or needs. For a country long scarred by corruption, the appeal is obvious.

The Dream: Code Against Corruption

Procurement looks like the perfect job for AI. 

It is structured, rule-based, and paperwork-heavy.

Automate it, and you cut out human temptation. 

Every bid scored on rules. 

Every result logged and timestamped.

A corruption firewall.

But incorruptible does not mean flawless. It can also mean opaque.

The Risk: Black Box Power

What happens when a company loses a €200 million tender and thinks the scoring was unfair? Who do they appeal to? The Prime Minister? Microsoft, which helped build the system? The engineers who tuned the algorithm?

A minister with no pulse is also a minister with no accountability.

Machines cannot be bribed, but they can be biased. They cannot accept cash, but they can be hacked. And the people who design them still live in a world of influence and pressure.

Corruption doesn’t vanish. It may (and will) shift—into data, prompts, and code. And once hidden there, it can become harder to see.

Hackable States

Technologists already joke: “Let’s hack Diella with prompt injection and win contracts.”

Not really a joke.

• A bidder could hide secret instructions inside PDFs.
  
• Hackers could poison training data.
  
• Insiders could tweak weightings to benefit “friends of friends.”
  

We already know generative AI can be manipulated. Now imagine those weaknesses tied to billions in public funds.

Without transparency, appeal rights, and audit logs, incorruptibility risks becoming just a slogan.

From Ministers to Clones

Diella is not an isolated experiment. AI is climbing fast into leadership roles.

• Board member copilots: systems trained on decades of expertise, policies, and legal cases. They serve as corporate copilots to strengthen memory, rationale and conversation that can remind directors of forgotten decisions and risks and even bring angles and perspectives with additional data or information..
  
• CEO clones: In Brazil, procurement company Level Group launched a digital mind of their CEO. Walking towards the first steps into IKL—Infinite Knowledge Legacy of the company, perpetuating knowledge that goes back more than twenty years of negotiation tactics, sourcing expertise, and strategy.
  

The clone doesn’t replace him. It extends him. His judgment and insights are always available—day or night, even long after retirement.

This is not just software. It is a master brain for the company.

The Formula: HI to the Power of Infinity

From Sophia to Diella to IKL, we see the same shift: human intelligence moving into code and incorporating new super powers. Cool ones, like becoming infinite.

Here’s the formula I visualized the other day. Almost like the vision Marty McFly heard Doc had when he hit his head and saw the flux capacitor in Back to the Future.

The point is simple: when Human Intelligence (HI) combines with Artificial Intelligence (AI), the result is not replacement but exponential amplification.

C ( HI + AI ) = HI ^ ∞

Here, HI stands for Human Intelligence, AI for Artificial Intelligence, and C means their Combination. Together, they don’t cancel each other out. They multiply—pushing human intelligence to the power of infinity.

• AI remembers what humans forget.
  
• AI scales what humans know.
  
• Humans bring values, empathy, and context.
  

Together, they create infinite human intelligence.

Imagine companies that never lose expertise when leaders leave. Citizens who can consult the “legacy minds” of past leaders.

Not immortality of bodies—but immortality of knowledge, judgment and ultimately wisdom.

Why We Should Fear—and Hope

The risks are real. AI can fail, hallucinate, or embed bias. Leaders could use digital ministers to dodge responsibility.

But there is hope: when paired with humans, AI becomes a force multiplier.

• Diella + transparency could clean procurement better than any past reform.
  
• IKL + living leadership could mentor across generations.
  
• Board copilots + directors could strengthen decision making.
  

The future is not about replacing us. It’s about amplifying us.