Published 9:03 am Friday, October 23, 2026

When you use an artificial intelligence system like ChatGPT, what it gives you depends on the prompt you enter. The answer is likely to be most useful if the prompt is carefully crafted.

This underlies a concern recently raised at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. That regional planning agency uses computer modeling (think AI-adjacent) to analyze data to help develop its proposals and policies for matching electric power resources with need. But some of the outputs raise questions about inputs.

The council’s computer tools include the GENESYS (Generation Evaluation System) model, as well along as OptGen/SDDP, AURORA and Itron.…