ROME: Local officials in Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT due to data privacy concerns, becoming the first European country to take such action against the popular artificial intelligence chatbot, AFP reported on Monday.
Italy’s data protection authority said that the US firm OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, has no legal grounds to justify “the collection and storage of personal data “.
Italy Blocks ChatGPT
ChatGPT caused an international sensation when it was released last year for its ability to produce songs, essays, exams and even news articles.
But critics have long worried that it was not clear where the chatbot and its competitors got the data or how they handled it.
Some education authorities and Universities and have also banned the ChatGPT over fears that students might use it to write essays and cheat in examinations.
And hundreds of industry figures and experts inked an open letter this week asking for a pause in the development of powerful Artificial Intelligence systems, arguing it posed “deep risks to society “.
The letter was provoked by OpenAI’s release this month of GPT-4, a more dominant version of its chatbot, with even less transparency regarding its data sources.
OpenAI said in a statement that it had “disabled ChatGPT for the users in Italy”. An OpenAI spokesman said that they want their AI to learn about the globe, not about private life of individuals,”.
It added that they are committed to protecting privacy and “we believe we comply with laws of privacy. We actively work to decrease personal data in training our systems like ChatGPT as AI regulation is must”.
