​After a dialogue held in the spring with Prime Minister Nicolae Chuke, the ION robot, an artificial intelligence advisor to the government, learned enough information from citizens. It is not known whether Ciucă or Ciolacu used this data or made any decisions based on the problems reported by those who interacted with the robot, but the government promises ION 2.0 in early 2024, which will also answer questions about some of the public. services

ION, the first robot based on artificial intelligence technology, which became an honorary advisor to Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucé, was presented to the government as a world premiere on March 1, 2023 by the then minister of digitalization, Sebastian Burdugia, together with Niku Sebe, the coordinator of the Romanian research team.

Niku Sebe, coordinator of the ION team and head of AI of Humans AI, the company coordinating the effort, later admitted that the government’s dialogue between Ciucă and the ION robot was staged.

At the time, the authorities noted that ION was in a training period and that the project was not complete.

Is ION complete? What can it do now?

HotNews.ro has asked the government and the Ministry of Digital Technologies, as well as the ION technical group, to let them know if this pro-bono project has been completed and what features it has.

• “The project has been operational/complete since receiving a number of reportable messages shortly after the official launch of the initiative.
• Due to the popularity of the initiative, Romanians have sent many messages to ION since the first week after its launch.
• The goal of the ION solution is a data reporting process (provided in advance by Romanians) through an interactive dashboard and an AI chat functionality that allows you to interact with the data to gain access to an understanding of the issues facing Romanians, not just an interface to communicate with citizens and receive their messages.”, said representatives of the ION technical group.

In the first week after its launch, ION received approximately half a million messages and tags on social networks from Romanians, the main topics of discussion were education, improving the public health system and conditions for people with disabilities or the elderly. , low salaries and pensions, as well as the need to improve living conditions in the country’s big cities.

VIDEO Experiment with the ION robot on Euronews Romania

The robot has also been featured in some TV shows, such as Euronews Romania.

The robot is currently located at the headquarters of the Humans.ai company and, depending on the activity, at the Ministry of Digitalization or at the ION Caravan (the last cities where the ION robot was present: Neamts, Botoshan, Olt, etc.).

In June 2023, the ION research team presented the robot at the University of Oxford in the UK, and earlier this month ION was presented to India’s Ministry of Information Technology.

ION 2.0 is being developed: citizens will be able to find out how to change their identity card or how much a simple electronic passport costs

On the government side, responses related to ION came from the Ministry of Digital Technologies, currently headed by Bohdan-Gruya Ivan (PSD), which says that early next year the robot will transition from training to responding to certain government services.

• “ION has two functions. The first is an analysis by asking citizens to find out their problems and priorities.
• Work is also underway on a version where ION will provide information about public services offered by the Romanian state.
• For example, citizens will be able to learn how to change their identity card, how much a simple electronic passport costs, what documents are required for a foreign passport, etc. ION is connected to the Directory of Public Services, a program developed by the Romanian Digitalization Authority that centralizes public services.
• It should be noted that the institutions that provide them are responsible for the reliability of public services and have entered the data into the Catalog of public services. Both products, ION 2.0 and Public Services Catalog, are currently in testing and optimization versions.”, This was reported to HotNews.ro by representatives of the Ministry of Digitization.

In fact, Digitalization Minister Bohdan-Gruja Ivan said in September that he would like ION to answer, like ChatGPT, questions like “how can I update my newsletter?”. At the time, the minister said he had discussed these aspects with the ION team.

• “Indeed, the ION development team has started implementing new conversational functionalities of the solution to be able to provide citizens with simplified information about administrative processes in the state.
• The functionality has already been developed and is currently at the stage of testing and optimization.”, now say representatives of the ION team.

VIDEO (min. 28:15) ION 2.0 was presented at the event of the European Commission

• “The new functionality was first presented during the SEMIC event organized in Madrid on October 18, 2023 by the European Commission at the invitation of the conference organizers.
• Thus, representatives of the European Commission were able to interact with the new functionality of the robot, presenting to other representatives of the EU countries a practical example of this Romanian project.”, ION team representatives say.

Romanians will be able to make requests through ION 2.0 in early 2024

Instead, the Ministry of Digital Affairs clarified when citizens will also be able to ask ION 2.0 questions.

• “The development team is still working on the new ION query feature and is currently in the testing and optimization phase of the solution. At the beginning of next year, citizens will be able to make requests through ION.
• Soon all the services that are in the Catalog of public services will be available.
• In addition, the Directory offers the ability to connect via a REST API, so not only ION will use data from the Directory, but also any interested party.”, officials of the Ministry of Statistics noted.

How did the governments of Ciucă and Ciolacu use the information collected by ION?

HotNews.ro tried to find out how the two prime ministers – Nikolaj Čuke and Marcel Čolaku – used the data collected by ION so far. What analyzes and reports did the two governments receive and, in particular, what decisions did they make based on these reports.

To these questions, the Ministry of Digital Affairs only replied that “the ION robot has created a dashboard through which decision-makers can see the priorities and problems reported by citizens”, without saying whether policy decisions were made following these reported problems.

On the other hand, ION’s technical team says that “a dashboard where decision-makers can see priorities and issues proactively flagged by citizens is available to government officials in real-time.”

• “There is no need to receive custom reports, but they can be viewed directly on the reporting platform or downloaded at any time, depending on the topic of interest and the filters applied. In addition, through an interactive chat that allows you to communicate with the data, ION can be asked to make a summary on any interesting topic to better understand the opinion of citizens at the moment.”, – said representatives of the ION technical group.

Data Protection is investigating ION’s collection of information. What guarantees do the Ministry and the ION team provide?

At the time of its launch, the ION robot did not have a risk analysis (DPIA) on the data it collected, and the Directorate for the Control of Personal Data (ANSPDCP) clarified, upon request by HotNews.ro, that it has opened an investigation.

• What happened in the meantime?

The Ministry of Digitization and the Humans.ai team told HotNews.ro that “they have not received any warning or fine from the National Supervisory Authority for the Processing of Personal Data.”

• “Given that the ION project does not process personal data or user profiling data, the DPIA risk analysis was not applied.
• According to the terms and conditions applicable to the ION project, the data obtained by the ION artificial intelligence software, respectively, the written messages sent through the website ion.gov.ro and the publications on social networks are not accompanied by any identifier, Thus, they are anonymous while searching for them to remain anonymous.
• The ION project does not process personal data as part of its activities.
• Neither the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization (“MCID”) nor any other party involved collects personal user data. The system is designed in such a way that no information about the sender’s location or Internet Protocol (IP) address is extracted.
• The only information received through the ion.gov.ro website and social media posts is that which the ION user wants to convey in the content of the message.
• ION AI’s role in data analysis is to efficiently summarize all messages and topics of interest to Romanians, with the ultimate goal of translating them into relevant statistics according to the topic, to be used by those responsible for public policy. within the framework of state administration.
• The ION project only stores citizens’ messages/wishes about Romania, provided in advance by them on social networks via the tags @noisuntemion, #noisuntemion or direct messages on ion.gov.ro and through discussions with the physical robot.”, ION team representatives claim.

Read also:

• PHOTO/VIDEO Ciucă received artificial intelligence. “Surprise” announced by the Prime Minister: Advisor “Ion”, the first 100% Romanian AI project
• “Father” of ION admits that the dialogue with Ciucă was staged and that the robot is not yet finished / What Niku Sebe said during the “launch”
• Data Protection investigates whether the ION robot and the Ministry of Digitization comply with the GDPR / Out of 500,000 messages on ION, only positive ones are published