How mAigo will work
“How can I get an identity card”, “how can I issue a family certificate”, “my son was born in 2010, is he entitled to a youth pass”? are some of the questions that the first “Digital Assistant” – “mAigov” – is called upon to answer from today Artificial Intelligencewhich launches today at gov.gr and starts operating from this afternoon, in order to make the daily life of citizens even easier, simplifying and speeding up their interaction with the public sector. However, the citizen can also ask him more … strange questions such as “I hear my neighbor in the next apartment, I’m afraid he might be abusing his dog” and get the corresponding answer from the digital assistant.
It is the first and decisive step of the government for its strategic plans to become a pioneer country in the study and application of artificial intelligence in the European Union and practically to be the first country to introduce generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI) in the public sector and in the service of citizens.
The Minister of Digital Governance Dimitris Papastergiou presented mAIgov stating that “mAIgov.gr” will have a multiplier effect for the Greek citizen and the Greek public administration. The bet is how the gov.gr tool will become even more successful. The road was long. “mAIgov.gr” came to give even more flexibility to gov.gr”. Mr. Papastergiou spoke about a great challenge for technology, humanity. “I don’t say this out of concern, but with enthusiasm for the perspective that technology always gives to our lives. mAIgov.gr will be able to replace some points of interface between the state and the citizen” he added.
Mr. Papastergiou pointed out that it is useful for citizens to understand that “the more we use the model, the more it is trained. What they want from the citizens is to see it, to work on it, to judge if the answers are correct” adding that “it is only the beginning, the aim is to get other applications and other ideas”.
For his part, Deputy Minister Konstantinos Kyranakis emphasized that “we accepted the challenge and bet on it to be able to deliver something that will serve all citizens, for all issues at all times”. Mr. Kyranakis said that “it will be a continuous tool that will give continuous, daily feedback so that we can make the state better overall”.
According to APE BEE, the General Secretary of Information Systems and Digital Governance, Demosthenes Anagnostopoulos, spoke of an innovative adoption of technology, who characteristically said that “artificial intelligence is entering the State for the first time. This is a huge opportunity. This application is also innovative for European data. There is nothing equivalent on a pan-European basis,” commented the general secretary of Public Administration Information Systems of the Ministry of Digital Governance, Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos, during the presentation ceremony of the new service.
“Today, a first, but very important step is being taken for the next generation of communication between citizens and public services. “mAIgov” digital assistant is an innovative application, which shows in practice how cutting-edge technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, can facilitate the everyday life of citizens.” commented Grigoris Christopoulos, Chief Commercial Officer Business Segment OTE. It should be noted that OTE has taken over the infrastructure and its support as well as the technical help desk.
“The country is changing the page and moving into the era of Artificial Intelligence. The government is embracing new technology. We are a co-pilot in this effort,” the CEO of Microsoft Greece, Cyprus, Malta emphasized for her part. Gianna Andronopoulou (the digital assistant “steps” in Microsoft’s OpenAI).
How it will work
With the entry of AI on gov.gr, the citizen or business will not have to search for gov services and “Mitos” procedures. A written question – even a spoken one – will suffice, and the AI application will search and give detailed and step-by-step guidance on what to do for the service we are looking for. The digital assistant will search for all public services and guide the citizen, giving combined answers to simple, but also more complex questions.
It should be noted that all the data will be anonymized, in case the citizen adds it, the system itself will delete it, and the “conversation” will remain for 20 days. The BETA version will be in the air until the system is tested and the necessary experience is gathered.
Thus, citizens can chat with the “Digital Assistant” both from their mobile phone and from their computer. They submit their question in natural language, written or spoken, so that the “Digital Assistant” helps them locate the service they are looking for in a simple and friendly way, while at the end of the “conversation” they have the possibility to evaluate the application. The search is carried out in -to date- the 1607 services of gov.gr and the 3270 administrative procedures of the National Register of Administrative Procedures “MITOS”. It is pointed out that the model has reasoning and answers based on the data entered. It takes into account the original question and remembers the conversation during the session, ensuring an optimal experience for each user.
mAigov Beta provides – at the moment – the ability to serve up to 240 conversations in Greek per minute. Each citizen’s interaction time with the system does not exceed 5 minutes per session. With the aim of ensuring a good experience for the end user, but also the availability of the service for the largest possible number of citizens, especially in the first period when increased interest is expected, mAigov’s system includes a specialized queuing mechanism. Once the maximum number of concurrent serviceable users is reached, the next user is queued until they can be serviced.
It should be mentioned that mAigov is being launched in a pilot “Beta” mode, since, as with all IT applications, the computing systems need time to learn, while at the same time they evolve based on the data entered by the users, who in this particular case are the citizens . This period allows the improvement of the application based on the needs and response of users/citizens.
Regarding personal data
It should be noted that for the implementation of the project, resources financed by the Recovery and Resilience Fund have been used, which are intended to strengthen the digital transformation of the country. They relate to a contract of the Ministry of Digital Governance for cloud services, and it is monitored by the Information Society (KtP MAE)
The contractor of the project is OTE with subcontractors Accenture and UBITECH which did the implementation, while the technology provider is Microsoft with Azure Open AI technology.
The first chatbot of the Greek State was designed using cutting-edge technologies based on artificial intelligence and cloud computing models 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 (GDPR).
