Regulators said Thursday that ChatGPT would submit data privacy safeguards to address the Italian ban on the artificial intelligence chatbot.
This Monday, Garante, Italy’s data protection watchdog, ordered San Francisco-based OpenAI’s popular chatbot to halt processing Italian users’ data while it investigates a suspected EU data privacy violation.
Analysts noted it was the first democracy to prohibit a major AI platform countrywide.
The watchdog’s commissioners and OpenAI leaders, including CEO Sam Altman, vowed to address concerns in a late Wednesday video chat. The medicines are unspecified.
The Italian watchdog highlighted to OpenAI the need to comply with the 27-nation EU’s strict privacy standards without hindering AI research.
As users’ communications and payment details were leaked, authorities banned it. They also questioned OpenAI’s legal right to gather huge quantities of data to train ChatGPT’s algorithms and highlighted worries the system might occasionally create inaccurate information about individuals.
Generative AI technology like ChatGPT is “trained” on massive amounts of data, like digital books and online writings, to create human-like prose.
These systems have raised concerns about ethical and societal implications among authorities, regulators, computer scientists, and tech sector executives.
Italy’s action alerted other agencies in Europe and worldwide.
“We will communicate with all EU Data Protection Authorities in connection to this matter,” stated Ireland’s Data Protection Commission.
After two ChatGPT complaints, CNIL is investigating. After receiving a complaint regarding OpenAI’s “collection, use, and sharing of personal information without consent,” Canada’s privacy commissioner started an inquiry.
In a blog post this week, the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office said, “Organizations developing or employing generative AI should be addressing their data protection requirements from the beginning” and designing systems with data protection as a default.
“This isn’t optional—if you’re processing personal data, it’s the law,” the official added.
OpenAI issued a blog post-Wednesday addressing AI safety issues. The business claimed it removes personal information from training data when possible, fine-tunes its models to refuse requests for private persons’ data, and deletes personal data from its servers.
