Microsoft has offered US government agencies access to large language models (LLMs) developed by OpenAI through Azure cloud services. According to Reuters, Microsoft has expanded support in the Azure Government cloud to include both GPT-3 and the newest and most sophisticated LLMs behind the GPT-4 multimodal model.
The use of LLM has grown rapidly in popularity since the introduction of ChatGPT by OpenAI, which is backed and partially owned by Microsoft. ChatGPT has previously unheard-of “sociality” characteristics, the ability to support meaningful conversations, and now companies of all sizes, from startups to large corporations, are looking to implement similar solutions and functionality into their services.
Microsoft is the first to offer GPT technologies in the Azure Government cloud, providing services to numerous government departments in the United States. This is the first time that large companies provide such services to government agencies.
In addition, Microsoft is already providing similar functionality to Azure commercial users through Azure OpenAI Services. According to the latest data for May 2023, there were already 4.5 thousand customers, notes NIXsolutions.
Microsoft says government customers can use artificial intelligence for a variety of tasks, including content generation, converting text commands into program code, and compiling summaries from lengthy materials.
It’s worth noting that LLM-based services can sometimes suffer from “hallucinations” and give wrong answers. Experts and industry leaders have repeatedly warned about the need to regulate such developments and solutions, and even called them a threat comparable to a pandemic and nuclear war.