It was reported by the Associated Press that Italian regulators have recently conveyed to OpenAI that its chatbot known as ChatGPT has violated the European Union's firm data privacy rules. Garante, Italy's data protection authority, stated that it informed OpenAI of this violation on Monday. The investigation of ChatGPT began last year after Garante had placed a temporary ban on the Chatbot.
This photo illustration shows the ChatGPT logo at an office in Washington, DC, on March 15, 2023. - The company behind the ChatGPT app that churns out essays, poems or computing code on command released on March 14, 2023, a long-awaited update of its artificial intelligence (AI) technology that it said would be safer and more accurate than its predecessor.
OpenAI's Response
After conducting what Garante described as "Fact-finding activity" they "concluded that the available evidence pointed to the existence of breaches of the provisions." The San Francisco-based company currently has 30 days to respond and stated "We believe our practices align with GDPR and other privacy laws, and we take additional steps to protect people's data and privacy." The company went on to disclose that, "We want our AI to learn about the world, not about private individuals. We actively work to reduce personal data in training our systems like ChatGPT, which also rejects requests for private or sensitive information about people."
The company has also stated that last year to get the ban lifted they complied with Garante's conditions. The reason the ban was imposed was that Garante had found that some of the chatbot's users had some of their messages and payment information had been exposed. In addition, they also found the lack of a system that could verify a user's age which allowed children to receive answers inappropriate for their age. They also questioned if there was a legal basis for the San Francisco-based company to gather a mass amount of data that was used to train ChatGPT's algorithms thus giving rise to concerns that the system could generate false information about individuals.
Artificial intelligence has been the subject of controversy around the globe. For example, the United States Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry into the connection between AI startups such as OpenAI as well as Anthropic and the tech giants that have invested in the companies. Including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. In addition, competition regulators in the EU and Britain have also begun looking into Microsoft's investments in OpenAI. Finally, the EU is putting the final touches on its AI Act which will act as the first rule book for AI. However, many industries are still interested in integrating with AI. Recently HNGN reported that the gambling industry will be integrating AI into its systems to create better games and overall experiences.
