The city of Montpellier has announced several measures to better reflect on how to use artificial intelligence (AI) in an ethical and responsible way. The town hall even wants to develop a ChatGPT type model made in Montpellier.
Last March, Montpellier prohibited the use of ChatGPT to its agents and suppliers. The city is not anti-AI for all that, assures Manu Reynaud, the elected official in charge of digital at the town hall.
Thinking together to use AI responsibly
He notably recalled that conversational AI was singled out for the management of personal data carried out by its parent company, OpenAI, and specified that many companies had prohibited its use for these reasons. This is the case of Apple, which wishes to avoid a leak of confidential information on its products through ChatGPT. The decision of the town hall of Montpellier was taken at “ conservatory title “, while waiting to get to know the model better.
” See how social media today is destabilizing our democratic communities. We didn’t necessarily question ourselves before, they invaded us, and today, we are trying to regulate them. I believe that AI deserves a national citizen debate. We are going to launch a local citizens’ convention on this theme “, commented Michaël Delafosse, the socialist mayor of Montpellier. Its objective is ” that specialists from the private and public sectors experiment together with solutions to support the emergence of this technology “.
In parallel, the University of Montpellier organized, this Friday, May 26, a symposium on ” artificial intelligence in the administrative process “. Training dedicated to AI will also be organized in schools and universities, while a forum will be held in the city within a year.
A Montpellier ChatGPT in preparation
Above all, the town hall and the university are working on the creation of a model similar to homemade ChatGPT, in open source. Reserved for city officials, researchers and entrepreneurs, it will be developed using a supercomputer ” of great power », Reports 20 minutes. Manu Reynaud believes that this AI will be more responsible because hosted locally; it will also be managed by an ethics committee.
According to the mayor of Montpellier, these various initiatives respond to the call of the European commissioner for digital, Thierry Breton. The latter urged the elected officials to “ work on rules to frame AI with voluntary companies pending new legislation in the EU “, a reference to the AI Act, a text currently in preparation but still far from being adopted, which will establish many rules for the use of AI on the Old Continent.
Sources: 20 minutes, France 3
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