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For the time being, the task of AI-based virtual advisor ION is to collect information, later on he will also provide solutions, Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation Sebastian Burduja said on Monday.
"At this moment, the goal of this project is to accumulate information. (...) In a later stage, after we, the citizens will have put in enough data, (...) ION will be able to provide solutions as well. People probably expected something of the like of multi-billion dollar solution GPT Chat. He is not there yet and this is not his purpose right now. We have to teach him, feed him as much data as possible. (...) I am a parent, many of us are, we can all be the parents of this project," Sebastian Burduja said as he attended an interaction session between the virtual advisor and students of the 'Aurel Vlaicu' National College in Bucharest.
According to Minister Burduja, how long it will take ION until he will be able to properly answer questions greatly depends on the input volume. "Whether it takes a few months, whether it's a year, we will definitely reach that moment," he said.
Burduja specified that there is an agreement in place under which the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation made available one of its servers for the ION project.
According to the Research minister, the virtual advisor can filter repetitive messages.
"If he is flooded with messages intended to manipulate him, he has a way of realizing that this is an attempt to trick him, he can also detect profanity or other bad words," Burduja explained, emphasizing also that the ION project has come to international attention.
"I met with my French counterpart the other day, she inquired about this project. She wants to send a team of French researchers to look at this algorithm, understand how it works and take over this innovation. The same goes for the OECD," Sebastian Burduja also said.
The project incurred no costs for the Romanian state, as researchers are developing it 100 percent pro bono.
