ChatGPT Use Sought by Japan’s Agriculture Ministry

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:38 JST, April 20, 2023

The agriculture ministry is considering using ChatGPT, a conversational artificial intelligence model developed by U.S. startup OpenAI, for some of its work, its minister has said.

The ministry intends to make use of AI to revise and update the contents of manuals for its online services, among other tasks.

Regarding ChatGPT, concerns have been pointed out about the risk of classified information leakage and privacy infringement.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has judged that, as the contents of the manuals have already been made public, there will be no problem if it uses ChatGPT to modify words and phrases in the manuals.

The conversational AI model will be used mainly to revise the contents of the manuals for the ministry’s online services for more than 5,000 administrative procedures. The manuals include how to apply for these services and have been modified by operators in charge of the maintenance and inspection.

Farm minister Tetsuro Nomura said Tuesday that the ChatGPT would be used to the extent that no issues should arise.

“It is possible that secret information could be leaked,” Nomura said. “But we will use it to compose in an easy-to-understand manner content that has already been made public.”

Out of security concerns, the ministry intends to use ChatGPT through Microsoft Corp.’s cloud services.