How AI is perfecting the art of government obfuscation

‘Nearly every other press note speaks of the unknown golden future under ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’. Phrases such as “digitally empowered society” and “knowledge economy” are liberally thrown around, along with the typical governance-speak: “holistic”, “convergence”, “capacity building”, “citizen-centric”, “grassroots” and so on’ | Photo Credit: viksitindia.com Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay created the memorable fictional politician, The Right Hon. James Hacker. The two-part Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister diaries of Hacker dealing with bureaucrats never gets old. I recently turned to them after frustrated encounters with government press notes packed with buzzwords that spoke a lot but said very little.In the editor’s note to the first volume, Hacker’s political training is blamed for him using “twenty words where one would do, to dictate millions of words where mere thousands would suffice, and to use language to blur and fudge issues and events so that they became incomprehensible to others.” These lines are a fitting description of government press notes that use various tools of evasion, serving to deliver two contradictory objectives: publicising the government’s achievements while concealing any information on shortcomings. This is an age-old trick that many governments have deployed. But today a new era of obfuscation is upon us, thanks to AI. Published - November 06, 2026 12:34 am IST