Robots make 28 million phone calls to assist epidemic response

Artificial intelligence-empowered robots have been making phone calls to people across the country for tasks such as novel coronavirus infection screening and education on the epidemic.

The robot covers over 60 phone call scenarios at present, according to Zhou Guohua, dean of the Engineering Institute of iFlytech South China AI Research, which is located in Nansha district, Guangzhou city in South China's Guangdong province.

It is able to make up to 100,00 calls an hour, depending on the capacity of the server and the number of outbound call lines, the dean said.

In screening and recording information of key groups of people, a human worker can call about 100 people in eight hours, but a robot is able to handle more than 100 times the workload in the same time span, Zhou said.

In such calls, the robot asks questions, including "Did you have symptoms of fever, dry cough or diarrhea recently? Did you meet any person from Hubei or other places with a major epidemic recently?"

The system has been used in 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including East China's Anhui and Zhejiang provinces, Beijing and Central China's Hubei province, making 27.72 million calls between Jan 21 and Wednesday.