A local government in Japan announced the use of ChatGPT to assist in the office

A government employee in Yokosuka, Japan is using ChatGPT

Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan (YOKOSUKA) has reportedly announced that it will use ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-generating robot, to help handle government affairs and improve office efficiency for a trial period of one month.

The local government says all local government employees can use ChatGPT to "summarize sentences, check grammar and get new ideas," adding that no confidential or personal information will be entered into ChatGPT. A government spokesman said the demographic crisis is a major factor driving the government to consider using ChatGPT for office work. Takayuki Samukawa, a spokesman for the local digital management department, said that as the population declines and the number of government employees is limited accordingly, "we want to use ChatGPT to handle some of the work to free up manpower to handle work that can only be handled manually." He added that the government plans to draft documents, create promotional and marketing-type programs, etc. through ChatGPT during the trial period.

Japan's aging problem has become more serious in recent years. As previously reported by the U.S. media, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during a press conference that "time is running out to have children." He also warned earlier that "the country is on the verge of not being able to sustain its social functions". According to the data, Japan will have 799,728 newborns in 2022, the lowest number ever recorded. Yokosuka's population also continues to decline, with the departure of key manufacturing industries adding to the decline, according to the report.

However, not all governments have welcomed ChatGPT. Italy became the first country in the world to ban the use of ChatGPT due to privacy breach risks and other issues, and ChatGPT has also sparked alarm in Germany, France and other countries. In addition, a number of Korean companies, including Samsung, SK Hynix, and South Korea's POSCO, are taking measures to restrict the use of ChatGPT to strictly prevent employees from leaking secrets. Japanese companies including SoftBank, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank and others have also begun to restrict the use of interactive AI services such as ChatGPT in their business operations.

German magazine used artificial intelligence to generate an interview with Schumacher. The picture shows the cover of the magazine

In addition to the problem of information leakage, artificial intelligence also has the risk of producing "false information". It is reported that a German magazine used artificial intelligence to generate the so-called "famous driver Schumacher's first interview", but in fact since the skiing accident in 2013, Schumacher has not appeared in front of the public.

The article, which was generated using the artificial intelligence program charatcter.ai, reportedly mimics Schumacher's answer to the interview by saying, "With the help of my team, I can stand up on my own and even take a few steps." The move sparked outrage from Schumacher's family even though the author mentioned in the article that "the quotes involved were generated by artificial intelligence. The family said it plans to take legal action against the magazine. Bianca, head of the media group that owns the magazine in question, said that such misleading articles should not have appeared and that they did not meet the journalistic standards expected by readers. Bianca announced that Anne, the editor-in-chief who had been in charge of the magazine since 2009, was immediately removed from her position.