Yokosuka Implements ChatGPT
The city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, has become the first local government in the country to trial the use of AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. The software will be implemented across all of Yokosuka's offices with the aim of increasing efficiency within the municipality.
Yokosuka's officials have confirmed that confidential data will be excluded from the trial and any entered data will not be used for training ChatGPT. The one-month trial will see ChatGPT being used to create bulletins, summarise meeting records, edit typographical errors in documents, begin the process of proposing new projects and advising policies for the government.
"It is one of the tools we can use as we think about what a municipal government can do to help residents lead happier lives," said Yokosuka Mayor Katsuaki Kamiji.
The municipality's officials will enter any questions or instructions into LoGoChat, a chat tool that is already in use across local governments, and connected with ChatGPT for the trial. If the trial is successful and ChatGPT proves useful in improving municipal operations, Yokosuka will officially adopt the software.
Chatbots are software applications powered using vast quantities of data from the internet, enabling them to simulate human-like conversations with users. Various ministries and agencies of Japan's central government have also been considering the use of ChatGPT for various purposes including the generating responses to lawmakers' questions during parliamentary sessions.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is considering trialling the software later in May, while Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has said his ministry will use ChatGPT on a trial basis for some of its operations. He also acknowledged the critical importance of confidential data handling.
"It is important to consider appropriate rules (for the usage) rather than stopping the usage altogether due to its challenges," he said.
ChatGPT, launched in November 2022 by American venture OpenAI as a prototype, is known as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer and is powered by a machine learning model similar to the human brain.
