Home Affairs says its staff\u2019s seven-odd months of experimentation with ChatGPT were of a \u201cgeneral curiosity\u201d nature, but that the tool wasn\u2019t used to write production code or make decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department placed a block on internal use of ChatGPT in May, although the tool had been usable in some circumstances since November last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the suspension of access was announced, the department\u2019s IT function issued a questionnaire to staff seeking to understand how ChatGPT had been used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The results of the questionnaire, released under freedom of information to The Guardian last month, showed some experiments sought to test ChatGPT\u2019s coding and debugging capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That prompted a series of questions from Greens Senator David Shoebridge at a senate hearing late last month [pdf], where he sought specifics on code-related uses of ChatGPT before the tool\u2019s use was suspended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written responses [pdf and pdf], filed this month, say that staff essentially just prompted ChatGPT to see what it could do, but not for any production purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe topics researched on [ChatGPT] were related to general curiosity regarding the \u2026 technology, technical background research and troubleshooting, and for personal awareness,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo specific codes and\/or scripts were produced and\/or uploaded into departmental systems as a result of these ChatGPT queries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that \u201cany reference to \u2018scripts\u2019 and\/or \u2018code\u2019\u201d in the questionnaire responses released under freedom of information \u201cwas generic and questioning in nature, for staff [to] understand the operation of the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further, the department said that \u201cthere is no evidence that any staff member used ChatGPT to make a formal decision on behalf of the department\u201d, or \u201cthat departmental or classified information was included as part of a ChatGPT search.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home Affairs also addressed criticism from Shoebridge that no formal register of prompts entered into ChatGPT had been kept during the experimentation period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shoebridge was critical of the department using a questionnaire to seek staff recollections of their use of ChatGPT, potentially long after they\u2019d used it, rather than to keep records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in its written response, Home Affairs said that experimental ChatGPT prompts did not meet the threshold to be considered a \u201crecord\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA Google or ChatGPT search is not considered a business record, unless it directly impacts or influences a decision made by a public servant,\u201d the department said, adding \u201cthere is no evidence\u201d that occurred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Home Affairs says its staff\u2019s seven-odd months of experimentation with ChatGPT were of a \u201cgeneral curiosity\u201d nature, but that the tool wasn\u2019t used to write production code or make decisions. The department placed a block on internal use of ChatGPT in May, although the tool had been usable in some circumstances since November last year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",630,420,false],"graptor-sq-xs":["https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Untitled-17.jpg",100,67,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Admin CG","author_link":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/author\/admin-cg\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"news<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Home Affairs says its staff\u2019s seven-odd months of experimentation with ChatGPT were of a \u201cgeneral curiosity\u201d nature, but that the tool wasn\u2019t used to write production code or make decisions. The department placed a block on internal use of ChatGPT in May, although the tool had been usable in some circumstances since November last year.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21670,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21667\/revisions\/21670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web3unplugged.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}