Is the AI takeover finally upon us? Starting from this August, the Tokyo metropolitan government will start using ChatGPT to carry out administrative duties such as writing texts and producing Q&A documents.
According to the governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike, the artificial intelligence chatbot, whose name stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, “has the potential to greatly transform the way public administration is conducted”.
“Better city governance can be achieved by assessing the positive and negative aspects of the AI service,” she continued during a metropolitan assembly meeting.
In case you haven’t heard, ChatGPT is an AI-propelled communication tool that users can have realistic, human-like conversations with. Founded by research lab OpenAI and trained using data from the internet, the bot easily carries out tasks such as writing code, drafting emails, and can provide extensive answers to questions.
Japanese officials have said that guidelines for its usage are currently underway, and more input from employees regarding how best to maximise its efficiency will be further sought out.
As with many forms of technology and their respective companies, some have concerns regarding issues on privacy. In May, Italian moderators announced a temporary ban on ChatGPT to look further into how data is collected and used through the software’s parent company.
To reassure citizens on the safety of using the ChatGPT software, the Japanese government has begun conducting tests to ensure the prevention of issues such as data leaks.
For instance, the city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture has already tested the chatbot during a trial period earlier this April. The results indicated that it sped up work efficiency in the office, particularly for clerical duties such as writing texts.
A statement on the local government website said that employees could use the software to “summarise sentences, check spelling errors, and create ideas”.
According to the Yokosuka government’s estimation, the official usage of ChatGPT in offices will result in a ten-minute reduction in working hours.
(Images: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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