The head of Italy’s privacy watchdog, Pasquale Stanzione, expressed hope on Tuesday that OpenAI, the US firm behind the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, would possibly adjust its software and bring it back to Italy by the end of April. On March 31, the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) issued a temporary block of ChatGPT due to concerns over data privacy. This makes Italy the first country to take action against the controversial AI.
Stanzione has indicated that the DPA is willing to allow the revival of ChatGPT provided the company takes “useful steps” and meets some conditions. First, the firm needs to ensure that users’ ages are being verified and also make clear the ways of reducing the risks of inappropriate replies. Furthermore, it must also be made explicit to users that their data is being used to train the ChatGPT algorithm.
ChatGPT, which has been creating a global buzz with its ability to generate essays, songs, exams, and even news articles based on short prompts, has been raising data privacy issues since its launch. This is due to the fact that it is not completely clear where ChatGPT and its peers are obtaining their information and the way they are processing it.
Since its launch, ChatGPT has successively entered business deals with Microsoft, including collaboration in the Bing search engine and other projects. The AI chatbot has also generated a competitive technological and venture capital atmosphere, as many tech firms and investors are eagerly seeking to capitalize on the lucrative AI market.
OpenAI, the US technology company behind ChatGPT, is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research laboratory established by Elon Musk and other industry veterans with the ambition to lead the AI revolution. With the inclusion of Microsoft and Google’s contributions, OpenAI is dedicated to the idea of a “positive-sum” future in artificial general intelligence as it envisions a future where intelligent machines can augment the capabilities of humans and make up for the existing gap.
