Edinburgh City Council has approved a new policy on Generative AI.
The policy covers generative AI tools, such as M365 Co-Pilot, ChatGPT and Gemini. It aims to improve the efficiency of council operations in order to: “automate routine tasks, accelerate analysis, and support faster decision-making.”
The council states in the policy that generative AI can be used for text, image and video creation, indicating possible uses within council personnel.
All council employees are covered by the policy, including elected individuals. The policy states that they will all be provided with e-training.
The policy outline does recognise some commonly addressed issues with generative AI, including sustainability, ethics and bias.
Scotland has a NetZero target of 2045, which is currently being challenged by the increased access to generative AI, which consumes large amounts of energy and produces large carbon emissions.
Edinburgh City Council have pledged to combat this by using sustainable cloud services, choosing low emission locations and services and energy-efficient AI tools. The policy also encourages staff not to use generative AI for “unnecessary tasks,” although these are not outlined.
They also recognise the impact of the biased data AI is often trained on, reproducing stereotypes and producing misleading, incorrect information. The policy outlines that confidential information must not be given to AI tools, and a human must verify all outputs to combat this.
One student stated: “I am worried about what this could mean for local artists in particular. This is just another example of a corporation favouring easy AI ‘slop’ over showcasing local talent.”
Another student, who studies Politics, said: “I understand that they have to keep up with technological advances, but I really wonder how many council workers could actually spot AI misinformation from the truth. Particularly in busy times such as elections, I worry what the impact could be.”
“City of Edinburgh Council” by Kirsty S. Ross is licensed under CC BY 4.0.