AI Writing and Teaching Assistant for NYC Public Schools

What it is for

Education & Learning

The tool is used daily by students and teachers to generate text responses to prompts, supporting classroom learning, writing assistance, and instructional tasks across NYC Public Schools.

Run by: NYC Public Schools (NYCPS)
Where: No fixed location
Kept: Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.
Shared with: Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

This system lets students and teachers type a prompt and receive a text response generated by a large language model (currently OpenAI's GPT-3.5). It was custom-built by the NYC Public Schools Division of Instructional and Information Technology using Microsoft's AI infrastructure. Human supervision is expected for each use. Users should be aware that the underlying model's training data is proprietary to OpenAI and not publicly disclosed.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour

Identifiable data

Prompts typed by students or teachers into the system. These are text inputs reflecting the user's instructional or learning intent, submitted interactively during a session.

Processing

Language Models

OpenAI's GPT-3.5 large language model, accessed via Microsoft's Azure infrastructure, processes the user's prompt and generates a text response. The system was custom-built by DIIT using advanced Microsoft technologies.

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)

Human decides

The system generates text responses to prompts entered by students or teachers. A human user formulates the prompt and evaluates or acts on the generated response; supervision is expected at each use.

Understanding (Semantic AI)

Human decides

The large language model interprets the meaning of user prompts before generating a response, grounding its output in the context provided in the input text.

Outputs

Generated content

Anonymized data

Text responses generated by the GPT-3.5 model in reply to student or teacher prompts. The output is new content created by the AI system and is not a label or decision about any individual.

Run by

NYC Public Schools (NYCPS)

The Division of Instructional and Information Technology custom-built this generative AI system for student and teacher use across NYC Public Schools, and is accountable for its deployment and operation.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Built by

Microsoft

Microsoft provided technical guidance for their emerging generative AI technology and built some small modules of code for the specific NYC Public Schools Gen AI and Teaching Assistant use cases. The system uses Microsoft's Azure-based AI infrastructure with OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Kept for

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization

Session outputs and interaction data are available to NYC Public Schools' Division of Instructional and Information Technology as the operating agency.

Available to vendor

Microsoft, as the infrastructure provider, may have access to prompt and response data processed through its Azure AI platform. The register does not detail the scope of vendor data access.

Stored

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data: Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data: Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data: The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides: This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes: This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous: This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, not the vendor.

Your rights

Right to Algorithmic TransparencyUsers are informed that the system accesses OpenAI's GPT-3.5 large language model to generate responses. However, the training data underlying the model is proprietary to OpenAI and not publicly disclosed. Further transparency information may be requested from NYC Public Schools' Division of Instructional and Information Technology.
Right to Be Informed of AI UseStudents and teachers using this tool are informed they are interacting with an AI system powered by OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model, deployed by NYC Public Schools. The system is presented as a generative AI tool, not as a human respondent.

Risks and safeguards

Societal & cultural harmThe system operates with human supervision at each use, meaning teachers and students evaluate generated responses rather than acting on them automatically. The training data is proprietary to OpenAI and not publicly disclosed, which limits independent auditing of potential biases. Mitigation relies on educator oversight and the supervised autonomy model described in the register.