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Public servants could find themselves replaced with robots sooner than anyone expected with Centrelink soon to step up experiments with "virtual" welfare officers manning the agency's shopfronts around Australia. Centrelink will soon have two robo-assistants answering questions from the public, one of them about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the other helping young people with the complexities of claiming student benefits. If the trials are successful, the virtual assistants look set to be rolled out across other areas of Human Service's vast responsibilities, replacing the traditional public servant behind a desk or at the end of a phone line. The giant department is already using a virtual assistant called 'Roxy', which answers internal questions from DHS's processing officials. According to IT trade website iTNews, Roxy refers to the department's operational manuals to answer questions coming via Skype from its own frontline public servants on DHS"s complex policies and procedures. Roxy supplies answers that used to be given by public servants who have now been freed-up to handle very complex problems which still require the human touch. DHS says it sharpened Roxy up with some "real life" experience, feeding in every question and answer between claims officers and internal experts over a three-month period. Human Services' Chief Technology officer Charles McHardie, told iTNews that Roxy is currently answering nearly four out of every five questions being put to her by claims officers. "It's been quite successful reducing their workload," the senior official said. Mr McHardie said he and his colleagues saw the virtual assistant concept as having a central role in the future of claims processing at DHS, which also runs Medicare, the Child Support Agency and administers some Veterans Affairs payments. Roxy could play a central role in WPIT, the department's $1 billion welfare payments system replacement project. "We see that as a core component of claims processing, whether it's with WPIT or in the department," he said. But the big test is set to being in February when two new 'Roxys' are let loose on the public. Mr McHardie says he and his team hope that virtual assistants could be the key to solving some of DHS's notorious customer service woes, reduce waiting times and free-up human public servants to help with more complex queries. "It's a little more tricky because [a client] could ask a question in a myriad of ways; it's a less controlled environment," Mr McHardie said. "Our vision is that in the future when you first interact with DHS, it's with a virtual assistant: you outline your circumstance - I've just lost my job, my mother has died, I've just been kicked out of home - so the virtual assistant will need to be able to deal with many elements of context. "When you unleash [this] to 24 million Australian citizens, you need a better level of assurance."

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