UK Government Draft Advises Staff to Use Smaller AI Models and Shorter Prompts

Summary

The UK government has published a draft guide for employees on using AI safely, fairly and sustainably in government work. It says staff should follow any AI rules set by their department and select a tool suited to the task, giving Gemini Flash over Gemini Pro and GPT Instant over GPT Thinking as examples. The guidance recommends using as few prompts as possible and making them short, clear and direct, partly to reduce the environmental impact of AI processing. It also says users do not need to thank chatbots because such messages add unnecessary processing. The document asks employees to check AI outputs for factual errors, unfair treatment, stereotypes and discriminatory language. It emphasizes that people remain responsible for content and decisions produced with AI assistance and cannot shift blame to the tool. The document is under 600 words, remains unfinished, and includes a prompt-library link that the article says may only work on the government network.