FOI Ref: FOI/2023/5033
You asked
Please could you provide records of any payments or subscriptions held by the UK Statistics Authority for ChatGPT services, in the 12 months to 21 March 2023 and details of reasons given for procuring services.
We said
Thank you for your request.
In the twelve months to 21 March 2023, UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) did not hold any subscriptions to OpenAI for ChatGPT services and as such had not made any payments for these services.
Between 21 March 2023 and 28 March 2023, payment of $57 was made to OpenAI for ChatGPT services. The reason for these payments was to provide a small number of employees with ChatGPT accounts for the purposes of conducting an initial assessment of the service. This aims to cover a number of themes including:
- Considering the risks of using Large Language Models (LLMs) including in relation to data protection and security, and the presence of bias and inaccurate information
- Establishing business management and security operating procedures that would need to be applied if these tools were ever to be used
- Identifying potential use cases of the service
This assessment is likely to take place over the course of several months.