VNN PRACTICE
BUILDING CAPACITY
Build Capacity With Generative Artificial Intelligence
Darryl Booth, MBA
generative AI into its Oce 365 suite, includ- ing Word, PowerPoint, and Teams. Google will soon make available a “magic wand” for its popular Google Docs. Be aware that there are free and paid ver- sions of most generative AI services. The paid versions feature extended capabilities, such as plug-ins and faster responses. Both are useful. For just 5 minutes, let’s play and learn about ChatGPT: • Point your browser to https://chat.openai. com. • Click Sign-up and create an account. • First, one for fun. In the Send a Message prompt, type the following: Write a haiku about my black beta fish, Max. • Click Send Message and we might get: In dark depths he glides, Max, the black beta fish thrives, Beauty veiled, yet wise. That was cute. To change to a more seri- ous topic, click New Chat (top left). Chat ses- sions are like conversations. Click New Chat when you change topics. • Type the following in the Send Message prompt: I’m a new environmental health professional for my county. In just a few sentences, help me explain to friends what I do. • Press Enter and watch for your personal- ized response. My response was:
Editor’s Note: A need exists within environmental health agencies to increase their capacity to perform in an environment of diminishing resources. With limited resources and increasing demands, we need to seek new approaches to the practice of environmental health. Acutely aware of these challenges, the Journal publishes the Building Capacity column to educate, reinforce, and build upon successes within the profession using technology to improve eciency and extend the impact of environmental health agencies. This column is authored by technical advisors of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) data and technology section, as well as guest authors. The conclusions of this column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NEHA. Darryl Booth has been monitoring regulatory and data tracking needs of environmental and public health agencies across the U.S. for over 20 years. He is the general manager of environmental health at Accela.
I f you track popular culture, you are al- ready aware of ChatGPT, Google Bard, Bing Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and their artificial intelligence (AI) cousins. Col- lectively, these tools are known as generative AI. Generative in the sense that they can gen- erate content in response to prompts. It is magical to those users who first encoun- ter it. “You mean it can write poems, emails, quizzes, outlines, and news reports?” Yes! Generative Artificial Intelligence The public preview of ChatGPT crossed over into popular culture as we transitioned into 2023 and started to look at the COVID-19 pandemic through the rearview mirror. The technology will certainly launch 10,000 new
startups this year. As you read this column, thousands of organizations are implement- ing AI strategies—and your environmental health department should, too. Chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat are trained on large language models (LLMs). If pointed to Wikipedia, they ingest and orga- nize what Wikipedia covers. If pointed to U.S. tax codes and regulations, they learn what the codes and regulations contain. And if pointed to your food code, marking guide, and transactions (e.g., permitting, licensing, inspections, emergency response), they can learn a lot about environmental public health and the operations of your department. Microsoft 365 Copilot was recently announced, which is a promise to integrate
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Volume 86 • Number 2
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