Italy is the first western country to take such action against the popular artificial intelligence chatbot.
The Italian government’s privacy watchdog has temporarily blocked artificial intelligence (AI) software ChatGPT about data privacy concerns.
Friday’s announcement made Italy the first Western country to take such action against the popular AI chatbot.
Italy’s Data Protection Authority described its action as provisional “until ChatGPT respects privacy.” His measure consists in temporarily limiting the company from keeping the data of Italian users.
The watchdog said ChatGPT developer OpenAI had no legal basis to justify “the massive collection and storage of personal data for the purpose of ‘training’ the algorithms underlying how the platform works.”
In addition, it referenced a data breach on March 20 when user conversations and payment information were compromised, a problem that the United States firm blamed for a mistake.
Since ChatGPT was launched, it has seen meteoric growth. millions of people use software for activities ranging from developing architectural designs to writing essays and writing messages, songs, novels and jokes.
It has also sparked a AI career among other tech firms and venture capitalists. Google is launching its own chatbot, called Bardand investors are pouring money into all kinds of AI projects.
But critics have long worried about where ChatGPT and its competitors get their data from or how they process it.
“Actually, we don’t know how the data is used because not enough information is provided to the public,” Ruta Liepina, an AI fellow at the University of Bologna in Italy, told Al Jazeera.
“At the same time, in the European Union, many new regulations are being proposed, but it will be a question of how they are applied and how much companies collaborate to show the information that is needed to better understand what these technologies are like. working,” Liepina said.
The artificial intelligence systems that drive these chatbots, known as extensive language models, can mimic human writing styles based on the vast amount of digital books and online writing they have ingested.
Some public schools and universities around the world have blocked the ChatGPT website from their local networks over student plagiarism concerns, but it was unclear how Italy would block it nationwide.
The move is unlikely to affect applications from companies that already have licenses with OpenAI to use the same technology that powers the chatbot, such as Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
This week, hundreds of experts and industry figures signed an open letter calling for a pause on the development of powerful artificial intelligence systems, arguing that they pose “profound risks to society and humanity.”
The letter was prompted by OpenAI release this month from GPT-4a more powerful version of your chatbot, with even less transparency about your data sources.
The Italian watchdog ordered OpenAI to report within 20 days what measures it has taken to ensure the privacy of user data or face a fine of up to $22 million or 4% of its global revenue. annual.
Artificial intelligence experts said more governments are likely to follow suit and issue similar regulations.
“I think there might be some follow-up from other countries, (especially) if the OpenAI company doesn’t provide more information on how the algorithm is trained,” Liepina said.
The San Francisco-based company’s CEO, Sam Altman, announced this week that he would embark on a trip to six continents in May to discuss the technology with users and developers.
Your trip will include a stop in Brussels, where European Union lawmakers have been negotiating sweeping new rules to limit high-risk AI tools.
Altman said his time in Europe would also include stops in Madrid, Munich, London and Paris.
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