N.C. State Treasurer Will Pilot ChatGPT to Improve Efficiency

(TNS) — One North Carolina government department will spend the next three months seeing whether ChatGPT can improve its daily work.

At a news conference Thursday on the campus of North Carolina Central University, State Treasurer Brad Briner announced a 12-week pilot program with OpenAI, the California company behind the popular generative artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT. Briner’s office is the first North Carolina division to partner with OpenAI and among the few state agency’s in the country to do so.

“Imagine the time saved when ChatGPT can help summarize reports, identify warning signs in local government financial audits, or do deep data searches for unclaimed property,” Briner said. “This allows our team of dedicated professionals to focus on higher level strategic decision making and financial stewardship.”

Founded as a nonprofit in 2015, OpenAI broke through in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, a large language model trained on an immense pool of data. It could respond to human-written prompts in seconds, crafting complete emails, college class assignments, board meeting notes, or even silly poems. The company, which now operates under a hybrid non-profit and for-profit structure, recently shared that it had 400 million weekly active users.

The version North Carolina treasurer staff will have access to through the pilot program is more tailored than the ChatGPT seen by the general public, State Treasurer spokesperson Loretta Boniti told The News & Observer. She also said neither the state nor OpenAI are paying for the partnership.

FINDING UNCLAIMED NC PROPERTY FASTER

A first-term Republican, Briner has emphasized technology in his initial months as treasurer, including through his support of a proposed Bitcoin pension investment bill. The partnership with OpenAI formed through his personal connection with Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji, a Duke University professor and former Biden Administration adviser who in October was named OpenAI’s first chief economist.

“You think about the important jobs of the Department of State Treasurer, both the treasurer himself, but also the people who run the divisions unclaimed poverty, NC Cash, Local Government Commission,” Chatterji said during Thursday’s news conference. “What they do every day is serving us, and these tools can help them better deliver those services.”

The pilot program does not extend to other state agencies. Briner said there is also “a bright red line” keeping the company from accessing private personal data. After the 12 weeks, the state will assess continuing collaboration.

OpenAI has formed other pilot programs in Minnesota, where it works with the state’s translation office, and in Pennsylvania, which last week announced a ChatGPT pilot partnership for its state employees.

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