Filenews 18 December 2024
The "Digital Assistant", the first application of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) in the Cypriot state, is launched today on the government portal gov.cy, with the aim, as stated in an announcement by the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, to facilitate the direct and faster communication of citizens with the state, providing information on issues that concern them on a 24-hour basis.
Also, citizens will now be able to submit their questions in both Greek and English, while each question can be typed in Greeklish characters.
It is clarified that in its first pilot (beta) version, the "Digital Assistant" will be able to serve citizens only for issues related to Social Insurance Services, while new thematic sections will gradually be added to expand the content to which it will be able to respond.
As an artificial intelligence tool, the "Digital Assistant" will be trained, developed and continuously improved, through conversations and interaction with users, in order to respond better and better to their needs.
Citizens will be able to submit their questions both in writing and orally, while the "Digital Assistant" will provide answers in a simple, understandable and friendly way, ensuring the best user experience and the interaction time of each citizen with the system cannot exceed 5 minutes per session.
It added that the "Digital Assistant" answers general questions, and therefore does not need personal information of the citizen, such as his name, age or address, in order to answer, according to the announcement.
It is also noted that the "Digital Assistant" 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 personal data protection (GDPR). In terms of content, it has been trained in documents that have been provided by government departments / services and are valid at the given time.
It is also clarified that the conversation with the "Digital Assistant" is not a conversation with a human and that the "Digital Assistant" is exclusively informative and its answers should not be construed as official advice or opinion of the relevant bodies.
