The popular artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, was temporarily blocked by Italy on Friday due to data privacy concerns, making it the first western nation to do so, Entrepreneurng report.
The US company OpenAI, which develops ChatGPT, was criticized by the nation’s Data Protection Authority for having no legal justification for “the mass gathering and storage of personal data for the aim of ‘training’ the algorithms underlying the operation of the platform.”
When ChatGPT was introduced last year, it created a sensation around the world because to its capacity to produce essays, songs, examinations, and even news pieces from brief suggestions.
But, detractors have long complained that it was unclear from where ChatGPT and its rivals obtained their data or how they handled it.
Because of concerns that students could use the chatbot to create essays or cheat on examinations, universities and several educational authorities have banned it.
And this week, hundreds of professionals and business leaders signed an open letter calling for a halt in the creation of potent AI systems, claiming they presented “deep hazards to society and civilization.”
The release earlier this month of GPT-4, a more potent iteration of OpenAI’s chatbot with even less disclosure regarding its data sources, served as the impetus for the letter.
The authority also emphasized a lack of transparency on whose data was being gathered in addition to a lack of a legal basis for data gathering.
It claimed that incorrect responses provided by the chatbot revealed that data was not being handled appropriately and accused the company of exposing kids to “very inappropriate answers.”
The watchdog also brought up a data breach that occurred on March 20 and was attributed to a glitch, exposing user communications and payment details.
Nello Cristianini, an AI expert at Bath University in the United Kingdom, said it would be simple to enforce age restrictions and secure user data.
The model is said to have been trained using unconsentedly collected and improperly handled personal data, according to the other two allegations, which were more troubling.
It is not immediately evident how these can be addressed, he said. The business has been given 20 days to react, after which it might be penalized up to 4 percent of its annual revenue or 20 million euros ($21.7 million).
Using the technology in its Bing search engine and other products, Microsoft signed a multibillion dollar deal with OpenAI as a result of ChatGPT’s phenomenal performance.
In conclusion, it spurred a gold rush among other tech companies and VCs, with Google launching its own chatbot and investors pouring money into a wide range of AI initiatives.
Source: PunchÂ
