Don't try asking Jamie for a date

Ask Jamie, developed by the IDA and the Ministry of Finance, is found at government websites such as the Ministry of Education's.
Ask Jamie, developed by the IDA and the Ministry of Finance, is found at government websites such as the Ministry of Education's. ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANG

ASK JAMIE
On the websites of various government agencies

Developed jointly by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and the Ministry of Finance, Ask Jamie is found on government websites such as those of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). It is optimised for mobile devices.

Jamie is not one for small talk - she can respond appropriately to basic conversational cues such as "hello" and "goodbye" , but she quickly shuts me down when I tried to ask her out on a date.

Ask to talk to a human being and Jamie will reply with the customer service hotline and e-mail.

While the answers are generally relevant to the website you are currently at, Jamie can provide useful answers pertaining to other government agencies. This implies that all the websites with Ask Jamie get their answers from a central source.

This is not the case for the virtual assistants from HDB (Ask Judy) and IRAS (Ask Jasmine), which do not appear to know about other government agencies.

Vincent Chang

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 24, 2016, with the headline Don't try asking Jamie for a date. Subscribe