Artificial intelligence based on ChatGPT technology will manage the answering of 112 calls from 2025 onwards in times of congestion, the assistant secretary-general for Internal Administration, António Pombeiro, told reporters today in Oporto.
“In principle, if the pilot goes well, we are prepared to, as of 2025, start using” the system to answer calls, said António Pombeiro to journalists today, on the sidelines of MAI Tech, a technology conference in the areas of security and civil protection, promoted by the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) in Porto.
The responsible person warned that, for now, we are working with a pilot project and it is “a very recent technology”, with the “need to do many tests”, admitting that for now we are “walking into the unknown”.
“In certain situations we have waiting periods motivated by call congestion, this when there are incidents or events that involve a lot of publicity, a lot of people visualizing what is happening, everyone has the initiative to call 112”, contextualized António Pombeiro, giving the example of urban fires.
As the resources are “sized for normal situations”, generating waiting times to answer the calls that “can reach five or six minutes”, the idea is to “create a first interface that answers the call, evaluates what kind of problem is being dealt with and what kind of report” is needed, but with “an answer in natural language”.
According to the Assistant Secretary-General of the Internal Administration, “the caller himself will not realize that he is talking to a system, a machine, a robot”, which will “use the new ChatGPT technology”, which will still undergo a period of testing with simulated calls.
“The second intervener must always be a human. The system never takes the call to the end”, assured António Pombeiro, clarifying that the system will work “only in times of greater congestion”.
Questioned about whether the idea is to replace people, the Assistant Secretary-General for Internal Administration rejected this, saying that it involves “reinforcing the operational means”, since it is always necessary to have a human at the back.
As for the false calls (to deceive or for purposes other than emergencies), which he said are around 60%, “a very high number” that does not affect the service, the responsible said that this situation “already needs a different learning”, but “is also a goal” of the new project.
