Crown Prosecution Service introduces Correspondence Drafting Tool that uses Microsoft OpenAI’s GPT4 large language model to produce initial drafts of letters and emails, with trained staff then reviewing and editing
The Crown Prosecution Service is using generative artificial intelligence to draft some of its emails and letters to people involved in prosecutions, with the aim of increasing the quality of its communications and increasing staff efficiency.
Its Correspondence Drafting Tool is currently used by 30 trained CPS staff to generate first drafts by populating specified templates with automatically generated summaries and mandatory information. Staff then edit these drafts with a further review and approval process before sending.
The CPS stressed that the AI service plays no part in legal decisions. “The tool does not impact decision making nor provide output which is used for decision making,” it said in a case study published on GOV.UK.
The tool was co-developed by NTT Data, CPS’s digital delivery partner, which provided expertise in AI model integration, natural language processing, data management and integration with existing CPS systems. It uses Microsoft OpenAI’s GPT4 large language model version 0125 to simplify legal text into accessible language and to select templates, with no further development, training or fine tuning of the model. Data is stored within the tool until correspondence is finalised at which point it is deleted.
The CPS said that such correspondence was previously drafted in Microsoft Word and involved manual transfers of information, which left potential for errors. While it recognised the risk of AI hallucinations it said this is mitigated by staff checking the output, comprehensive training and guidance as well as regular audits and management checks. It considered alternatives but decided that the contextual nature of correspondence made large language models most suitable for the work.
In July last year, the CPS said it planned to use AI to enhance business processes and had already developed small proof of concepts in areas including drafting correspondence.
