Korea’s environment ministry to test-use ChatGPT

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Korea’s environment ministry will test-use ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by U.S. company OpenAI, for a month before formally adopting that technology to streamline and improve its operations later this year, officials said on Sunday.

According to the ministry, its 100-member team will begin using various features of ChatGPT Plus — the paid version of ChatGPT — in their daily work starting Monday, including data analysis, preparing presentation materials, and translating documents into multiple languages.

However, during the test period, the officials are not allowed to put in sensitive, information such as personal data, under the ministry’s internal security rules.

After the test period, they plan to submit feedback to the ministry about whether the AI tool has been useful for their work and areas of concern. Their opinions will be used to comprehensively evaluate the ministry's plan to adopt AI technologies, potentially starting in September.

This comes as government ministries and agencies seek ways to take advantage of ChatGPT and other such services offered by AI companies. The Ministry of Economy and Finance was the first one to allow its officials to use the AI model for some of their work in February.

Yet security remains a concern for many, the risk of data breaches, bias and vulnerabilities to attacks. Many government departments and state-run organizations decided earlier this year to ban officials from using chatbot services provided by DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, in their computer systems.