The North Carolina Treasury Department has reportedly seen a notable increase in efficiency after incorporating OpenAI's ChatGPT into its operations. A 12-week pilot program, a collaboration between the state Treasurer’s Office, North Carolina Central University, and OpenAI, aimed to evaluate the application of artificial intelligence in daily tasks, as detailed by WRAL. State treasurer Brad Briner advocated for the AI's assistance in streamlining processes like analyzing financial data and detecting inconsistencies. At a news conference, Briner said, "What we've learned first and perhaps unsurprisingly, is that this technology saves a material amount of time."
Employees experienced a 10% productivity boost, with some tasks that once took 20 minutes being completed in a mere 20 seconds. In a audit Request review initially estimated at 90 minutes, assistants from AI managed to cut down the task to just a third of the original duration. These findings were outlined in a 48-page report that extolled the virtues of the AI tool, suggesting substantial time savings for state employees, potentially amounting to up to an hour per day, according to WRAL. Briner's outlook is optimistic, as he hopes the AI can relieve employees from repetitive tasks and allow them to allocate more time to higher-value responsibilities.
Despite concerns typically associated with AI replacing human jobs, Briner reassures that the technology is here to complement rather than substitute the workforce. He stated, "This technology is all about empowering public servants to do an even better job serving our citizens, not about replacing them." This sentiment was echoed in WECT's coverage, where Briner pointed out that the aim is to help make worker's load more manageable. The positive response from staff was substantial, with 85% of participants reporting a favorable experience during the study, according to WECT.
While the tool exhibited remarkable efficiency in tasks like composing emails and summarizing transcripts, users of ChatGPT did report instances of the AI producing inaccuracies, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as "hallucinating." Hence, it was crucial to verify its outputs. Siobahn Day Grady, director of NCCU’s AI institute, acknowledged the need for a diligent approach: "We always need to do our due diligence, and when using the technology, making sure that things are factual and not rely 100 percent on it to do our jobs, because we are the subject matter experts," she told NC Newsline.
