How AI turned Britain into a nation of super-complainers

The number of complaints received by public bodies across the UK is surging as Britons turn to AI to help them air their grievances.

Councils, schools, and police forces are all among bodies who have reported a huge spike in the number of AI-written gripes they are receiving as large language models (LLMs) make the task of complaining easier than ever. At the same time, the complaints themselves are unnecessarily lengthy, inaccurate, and often contain nonsensical “legalese”.

Experts say this is partly fuelled by people making “petty and spurious” complaints simply because the process is now less time consuming. But they warned that alongside them are genuinely aggrieved people, who have been empowered by AI to engage with the process, that are being blocked from getting resolutions by troubling backlogs caused by the surge in complaints.

“You've got a situation where people have struggled to write a complaint, or have the means to do so, and their complaint is genuine,” said journalist Sam Freedman, who recently covered the issue in his newsletter. “But then you’ve also got people creating a nuisance because they can now.”

For example, the number of employment tribunals filed in the UK soared by 39 per cent from January to March of this year, according to data compiled by The Economist. But the surge has seen cases pile up, with complainants now waiting until 2029 to get their cases heard.

Mr Freedman said the issue risks becoming a “collective action problem” because for every individual who finds it easier to complain using AI, other complaints takes longer to resolve.

“I think this is where it becomes a collective action problem in that for any individual it's easier to use AI, but if every individual uses AI, everyone's outcomes get worse because it takes so long to get a decision.”

For already pressed public bodies, the impact is significant. Councillor Richard Clewer, chair of the Local Government Association (LGA)’s public service reform and innovation committee, said the rise in “longer and more complex” complaints generated by AI is “increasing administrative burdens at a time of significant resource pressure”.

Even where complaints are genuine, experts said the use of AI can make it harder for authorities to distinguish this. Speaking to The Independent, caseworkers employed in MPs offices said around half of the cases they receive are now at least partly written by AI. But they described them as often “verbose”, not containing the right information, and “difficult to engage with”.

Consumer champion Helen Dewdney, who runs the blog The Complaining Cow, warned there are “huge pitfalls” that many fall into when using AI to draft complaints.

“First and foremost it gets a huge amount wrong,” she explained. “I asked it to write an email complaining about broadband and lack of service. It didn't advise on how to get the evidence, and in the email threatened Ofcom when it should be an Alternative Dispute Resolution provider and how to check which one the company is a member of.”

In another case, she said it mentioned an ombudsman that doesn't exist.

“AI does have its uses in complaints, but it is when you gain the correct information from reliable sources and ask it to put the complaint together using the information you give it,” she added.

Mr Clewer said local councils are now examining “potential future government action” to ensure their regulatory frameworks remain fit for purpose.

Likewise, Mr Freedman said bodies are likely to have to change the way their systems work in order to cope with the relentless pressure caused by AI.

“If this keeps going you’ll have to assume that local authorities will have to change the way that their systems work,” he said. “They’ll have to make it harder to complain or use AI to reply to complaints.

“They'll have to rebuild their systems in a way that stops them being overwhelmed. But again that may have negative effects for everybody if it becomes harder to make complaints.”

He added it has the potential to “change the relationship between the citizen and the state”.

“Some AI-written complaints will be genuine so you can’t just filter out AI, you have to look at them,” he said. “But then you start using AI to do that, and it becomes a situation where it is just chatbots talking to each other.”