Baguio lone district Rep. Mark Go (Facebook)

Educator-turned-Baguio Congressman Mark Go couldn't hide his excitement over the Department of Science and Technology's (DOST) intention to develop the Philippines' own version of the popular artificial intelligence (AI) tool, ChatGPT. 

On Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 5, Advance Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) Director Franz de Leon shared DOST's plans on AI usage during the agency's 2024 budget hearing before the House Committee pn Appropriations. 

De Leon, during Go's interpellation, said the DOST was already tapping AI when it comes to weather management and agriculture. 

"To be honest mahal pong magdevelop ng AI technology kasi you need the people, you need the infrastructure. But with the strong support of DOST, ginagawa namin siyang mas accessible sa lahat," the ASTI chief said. 

(To be honest , it's costly to develop AI technology because you need the people, you need the infrastructure. But with the strong support of DOST, we are making it more accessible to all.) 

And speaking of accessibility, De Leon said a Filipino-style ChatGPT could be in our immediate future. 

"In the coming months or year, magde-develop naman po kami ng (we will develop a) local version ng ChatGPT, which recognizes local language, English, Tagalog and even a combination of both," he said. 

"So pag naging successful (So if this becomes successful), it can be integrated in any application and then we can prosper further to different local languages po," added De Leon. 

Go, chairman of the House Committee on Higher Education, agreed with the vision of DOST. 

"Tama po yun...Kasi kailangan mayroon tayong large language model na itatayo ng DOST probably para doon tayo magtatanong...Para masiguro po natin na ordinaryong mamamayan ay magagamit po ito," the veteran solon said. 

(That's correct...We need to have a large language model coming from probably the DOST so that we'll use that instead...This will guarantee that even ordinary citizens will use it.) 

"Sana po tayo ang manguna rito, ang DOST (I hope we, the DOST become the first to do this). And I would like to propose one of these days Mr. Chair, we will visit DOST so we can partner with the implementation of our own artificial intelligence in this country," Go said.