Politics & Government

Govt Starts Discussing Use of Generative AI, Including ChatGPT

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
OpenAI and ChatGPT logos are seen in this illustration taken, February 3, 2023.

Jiji Press

17:43 JST, April 25, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The government held its first meeting Monday of a cross-ministerial task force to discuss the utilization of artificial intelligence, including the government’s use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools.

Participants mainly from the Cabinet Office, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry and the Digital Agency sorted out information regarding how government ministries and agencies are considering the use of the outsourced services.

Then they agreed to ban chatbots from handling confidential information and to set the scope of their use in view of risks including information leaks.

“Now that generative AI has ushered in a new phase, we could see unexpected things happening one after another,” Hideki Murai, assistant to the prime minister and head of the team, said, calling for each governmental body’s swift response.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has decided to use ChatGPT to improve work efficiency. An increasing number of local governments are also considering how they can use it.

However, the chatbot’s problems lie in the accuracy of answers and the protection of confidential information. Last month, Italy temporarily banned the use of ChatGPT due to privacy concerns.