NARA bans employee use of ChatGPT, memo

FedNewsNetwork reports that NARA has banned employees from using ChatGPT for work, citing an all-employee memo released 1 May 2024. The memo singles out ChatGPT “in particular,” stating the large language model “actively incorporates information that is input by its users into other responses, with no limitations.”

More from the cogent, well-written memo:

Various media reports indicate there is a growing amount of personally identifiable information and corporate proprietary information showing up in ChatGPT and other AI services. Employees who want to use AI to help them in their jobs often don’t realize that these types of AI services keep your input data for further training of the AI. If sensitive, non-public NARA data is entered into ChatGPT, our data will become part of the living data set without the ability to have it removed or purged.

Unusual for such mandates, the memo also points to a possible solution:

We are exploring the use of other AI solutions, such as Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, which provide services similar to ChatGPT, but in a more controlled environment. These tools differ from ChatGPT because they protect data input by federal agencies placing it in a private repository that is not shared with others.

The use of generative AI in the federal government is fast moving, and we will continue watching developments here at Chaedrol I/O.