AI and ParliHelper

Question

1. At estimates on 4 December last year, the Department was asked about the use of AI within the Department and its use in the preparation for Estimates briefs. The response was that AI was not used in the preparation of Estimates Brief and, quote: Copilot is the approved AI tool at the moment. There is no approval for the use of any other AI tools at this point in time The annual report says this: The department participated in an Innovation Pilot with our IT provider, DEWR. The Innovation Pilot has delivered 2 proofs of concept that simplify business processes around Senate estimates and parliamentary hearings (ParliHelper) and audit and risk analysis work (audit tool). Does the Department use ParliHelper as well as Copilot? 2. Is ParliHelper now an approved AI tool? 3. Was ParliHelper for the Budget Estimates Hearings? 4. Has ParliHelper ever been used to prepare briefs, answers, questions on notice or hearing packs? 5. What data was loaded into ParliHelper? If any-did it include unpublished briefs, ministerial correspondence, legal advice, cabinet-related material or draft answers to questions on notice? 6. What hallucination testing was done? 7. Were privacy impact and security assessments donw in relation to ParliHelper? 8. In answers on notice, you previously said that AI prompts and outputs must be must be managed in accordance with the Archives Act 1983, and that AI prompts that have ongoing business value "are considered official records and must be stored and retained accordingly". In answers to a related question, you also say that staff chat logs are retained for just 7 days and are then scheduled for deletion. In practice, do staff take their AI chat log every 7 days, assess whether it's a Commonwealth Record and then store it? 9. In the last two weeks, how many chat logs have been retained as Commonwealth Records consistent with the requirements of the Archives Act? 10. In previous senate estimates hearings, the Department was asked about the use of AI tools to create or refine Senate Estimates Briefs. On notice the Department said it wasn't aware of any such use but that "the department encourages staff to use AI tools to refine, proof and quality assure their work". On notice, could you please table a list of prompts used to refine the Hot Topics Briefs prepared for this hearing? And if no such documents are available, please provide an explanation of why these prompts weren't retained as Commonwealth records.

Answer

Please see the attached PDF.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• SQ26-000372.pdf (opens in a new tab)