Keynote: PROMETEA. Artificial Intelligence to Transform Public Organizations

Abstract

We are going through the Fourth Industrial Revolution that places us in a scenario of profound transformation in what we do and in what we are. This monumental change, in essence, responds to two major intertwined phenomena: 1) the radical mutation of the time and space notions from massive use of (ICT) and 2) new ways of data and information processing within many activities that before could only be done by our brains. The relationship between citizens and public organizations has been a kind of procession of offices, papers, files, records, physical transfer to multiple buildings, forming queues and requests to speak with a manager or a boss. A sort of “bureaucratic purgatory”. Arising from the Internet, more sophisticated computers, the development of digital portals, mobile applications and social networks, the public sector of this 21st century has intensified the migration towards digitalization that improves and transforms the time/space - bureaucracy/citizenship binomials by empowering and updating three supra guiding principles: optimization, simplification and facilitation. Faced with these vertiginous and disruptive scenarios, public institutions are facing multiple risks, challenges and opportunities: How to adapt them when the design is based on an industrial world without internet, digital platforms, social networks, Artificial Intelligence systems, and robots? How can one take advantage of the emerging technologies to transform the printed bureaucracy into an authentic digital Government, Administration, and Justice transformation?