A new AI chatbot is helping residents find answers to various questions about Arlington County government operations, elections and more.
“AVA” — Arlington Virtual Assistant — is connected to four county websites: the general site (arlingtonva.us) plus specialized sites for library services, elections and Arlington Transit.
It — or perhaps “she”? — can be accessed on the bottom right of website pages. Clicking on the link brings up a box asking for questions.
“It allows us to be smarter and better in providing more targeted information,” County Board Chair Takis Karantonis said in touting the new initiative at a Board meeting yesterday (Tuesday).
A test by ARLnow found accurate responses to three queries:
- “Does a library card cost any money?”
- “Can I pay a parking ticket online?”
- “Who is running for School Board this year?”
Each answer also included a link to the appropriate place on the county’s websites for further information.
AVA, which quietly rolled out over the summer, also provides an opportunity for the public to rate the responses using emojis ranging “from really angry to very, very happy,” Karantonis said.
Whether the answer was good or not so good, county officials are asking for that feedback.
No personally identifiable information is collected by the system, county officials say. Future plans call for making it available in languages beyond English, and ultimately having a live-chat option with a county staffer at the other end of the conversation.
For those who like to pose their questions to a real person, the county government’s main information and referral line at 703-228-3000 remains available.
Karantonis praised the Department of Technology Services for creating AVA’s infrastructure. He said government employees across the county had been recruited to test the system in an effort to find flaws and make it more responsive.
“This has been thoroughly tortured,” the Board chair said of the system.
The new AVA is actually the second of its kind in Arlington government. “AVA 1.0” was a bot that was powered to answer more than 700 frequently-asked questions related to operations of the county’s Department of Environmental Services.
Photo via Burst/Unsplash
