A pilot AI designed to interact with the public was launched on the government’s portal on Wednesday to answer questions people may have but for now, only general social insurance queries.

The ‘Digital Assistant’, is the first application of generative artificial intelligence to be deployed in the public sector, an announcement said.

“The aim of this tool is to facilitate more direct and faster communication between citizens and the state, providing information on issues that concern them on a 24-hour basis,” it said.

People can submit their questions in both Greek and English, and ‘Greeklish’ Greek words written in Latin characters, and also orally.

Social insurance is only the first step and more ministries, departments and services will be added in due course.

“The Digital Assistant will train, evolve and continuously improve through conversations and interaction with users so that it responds increasingly better to their needs,” the announcement added.

The AI will provide answers in “a simple, understandable and friendly manner, ensuring the best experience for the user”, the government said.

People will only get five minutes with the AI per session.

It will only answers questions of a general nature and does not require personal information, such as their name, age or address, in order to respond. 

The AI is based on Microsoft Azure OpenAI technologies and was implemented in accordance with the Microsoft Responsible AI Standard, “ensuring, among other things, transparency, equality and respect for user privacy and the protection of personal data”.

In terms of content, it has been trained on documents provided by government departments and agencies and in force at a given time. 

The announcement reminds users that in conversation with the AI to remember they are not talking to a person.

“The Digital Assistant is exclusively informative and its responses should not be construed as the official advice or opinion of the relevant authorities,” it concluded. 

Deputy Minister of Research and Innovation, Nicodemos Damianou said later on Wednesday said the reason social insurance was at the centre of the pilot launch was because more people had queries in that area than any other based on the number of calls to the 1450 helpline.

He invited the public to use the new AI service.

“This is a tool that by its nature, learns and is enriched through conversations with the public, through the stimuli it receives and as time goes on, it will evolve and become better,” he said.

Website: gov.cy.