On March 31, the Italian Personal Data Protection Agency announced that the use of the chat robot ChatGPT will be banned from now on, and the OpenAI company that developed this platform will be restricted from processing Italian user information. At the same time, the Personal Data Protection Bureau started an investigation. The Personal Data Protection Bureau believes that on
March 20, the ChatGPT platform lost user conversation data and payment service payment information. In addition, the platform has not informed about the collection and processing of user information, and there is no legal basis for collecting and storing a large amount of personal information. OpenAI must inform the Italian Personal Data Protection Agency, through its representatives in Europe, of the measures the company has taken to implement the agency’s requirements within 20 days, or it will be fined up to 20 million euros or 4% of the company’s global annual turnover.
In fact, this is not the first time that Italy’s data watchdog has taken similar action against AI chatbots. Technology media The Verge reported that the agency had banned the chatbot software Replika.ai from using personal data of Italian users in February.
Generative artificial intelligence has great potential, but it also raises concerns. This week, Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, issued a warning that ChatGPT could be misused for activities such as phishing, disinformation and cybercrime. But the group also believes that the chatbot could help with potential cases in areas such as terrorism, where it could be used to gather more information that could facilitate terrorist activities, such as terrorism financing or anonymous file sharing.
In addition, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and several entrepreneurs, scholars, and executives in the AI field also issued an open letter this week, calling for a global moratorium on the continued development of GPT technology for at least 6 months. The letter states that AI developers must work with policymakers to accelerate the development of robust AI-regulating systems.
Musk is one of the founders of OpenAI, but has since quit the company. He has repeatedly expressed the threat that AI will bring. In February this year, he said that artificial intelligence is one of the biggest risks to human civilization in the future. “It has positive and negative sides. It has broad prospects and powerful capabilities, but And with that comes huge risks.”