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(The Japan Times; April 20, 2023) .... The city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture has a few claims to fame: It’s home to a major U.S. naval base, it’s the birthplace of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, and it lends its name to a local variation of Japanese curry.
On Thursday, it staked out a new claim as the first municipality in the country to use ChatGPT in its municipal offices.
Roughly 4,000 employees at Yokosuka’s municipal government office began using the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, which was created by OpenAI late last year, for a one-month trial in efforts to improve operations.
“With the population decreasing, the number of employees is limited. However, there are many administrative challenges,” said Takayuki Samukawa, a public relations representative for Yokosuka’s digital management department.
“So we aim to use useful ICT tools, like ChatGPT, to free up human resources for things that can only be done in a person-to-person format.”
The move comes in the wake of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s visit to Japan, which included a meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida earlier this month, during what was his first overseas trip since the chatbot’s launch. Altman also announced that OpenAI would aim to open an office in Japan in the near future.
In light of the visit, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that, after first addressing security concerns, the government would work to “use AI to reduce the workloads of national public servants.” Matsuno’s statement came just days after digital minister Taro Kono also spoke of AI’s potential use for government administrative tasks.
In Yokosuka, Samukawa said a team was gathered to think of ways ChatGPT could be beneficial to the city. Through the trial period, the city’s hope is to use the tool to assist in tasks like summarization, copy ideation for marketing and communications, drafting the basis for administrative documents and perfecting easy-to-understand language.
While the use of chatbots has raised security issues, Yokosuka had also heard concerns from the general public about potential leaks of personal information by its human staff members.
However, Samukawa offered assurances that Yokosuka intends to use the tool in line with OpenAI’s typical security policy.
ChatGPT will be tested among Yokosuka employees in conjunction with “LoGo Chat,” a local government-focused chat service already in use by Yokosuka employees.
As for whether other municipalities might follow Yokosuka’s lead in tapping ChatGPT for administrative help, Samukawa said the city doesn’t intend to serve as an example for other local governments across Japan.
“It just happened to be the right time,” he said. “It’s up to each municipality to think of how they can use these tools.”
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