Generative AI ML Systems Guidelines for City of Tacoma

Generative AI ML Systems Guideline 4.1-GD-02

Purpose:  Generative AI such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot are powerful and useful tools. However, their use carries several risks which must be carefully managed to ensure it does not lead to unintended consequences. This document provides guidelines for the acceptable use of ChatGPT and other generative AI systems at the City of Tacoma and is intended to promote responsible and ethical use of this technology.

Background:  Artificial intelligence systems have gained a huge amount of attention recently. One popular example is OpenAI’s ChatGPT. ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning (ML) platform that has been trained over a vast expanse of data. ChatGPT is a powerful tool. Though it was designed as a chatbot to mimic a human conversation, it is exceptionally versatile, with the ability to answer questions, write essays, play games, compose music, and write computer programs, among many other features. Since the ChatGPT release on November 30, 2022, it quickly garnered attention for its detailed responses and articulate answers across many domains of knowledge.

Though generative AI systems such as ChatGPT can be used to generate human-like text, it is important to remember it is a machine learning model and may generate biased or inappropriate content. ChatGPT has also been acknowledged by its creators that it "sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers." This anomaly exists in all generative AI systems. Therefore, they must be used with caution.

Scope: This guideline applies to all City employees and other 3rd parties working on behalf of the city.

While the guideline makes several references to ChatGPT, it is intended to apply to the use of any generative AI solution.

Definitions and Guidelines: Provided in linked PDF file.