This week, Samsung, one of the biggest names in the tech industry, prohibited its workers from utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard, warning that they could be fired in case they are caught using them. This ban had its origin in a whistleblower leak of confidential inner source code by a Samsung engineer who published it on ChatGPT a month ago. According to reports, one Samsung employee sought to use the chatbot to find errors in sensitive databases and another fed it with a voice recording of a meeting to elicit meeting notes.
This isn’t the first occurrence of a ban being put in place for these tools. For example, JPMorgan placed a restriction on the utilization of ChatGPT for compliance reasons, Accenture and Verizon also followed with similar bans, and, more recently, Italy prohibited it for a time period due to fears that it might breach data protection laws in the European Union.
Microsoft, a key investor in OpenAI which is the parent company of ChatGPT, is also cautious of the tool. According to new reports, the firm’s Azure cloud platform will offer an alternative version, wherein customer data won’t be mixed with that of other users.
The safety issues of AI services, such as ChatGPT, aren’t without basis either. It can aid malicious activities such as phishing attacks and malicious code writing. On top of that, OpenAI admitted in March that it was a victim of a data breach, which revealed the payment information, incorporated with personal data, from subscribers of ChatGPT Plus.
Today, generative AI services are being utilized by people with no technical expertise, as it brings powerful functionalities in a user-friendly manner. It offers a new era of possibilities in the way we work, communicate and make decisions. Though, for all its promising advancements, caution is still encouraged over the technologies, coupled with the awareness of the data that such services access and store.
As for Samsung, it is a South Korean technology company, headquartered in Seoul. They are well-known in producing smartphones, television sets and other digital appliances. Following their lead, Samsung has become a trailblazer in digital innovation and is at the forefront of modern technology.
The person mentioned in the article is an anonymous Samsung employee. According to reports, they inadvertently caused the ban after uploading confidential source code to ChatGPT which led to the leak. It appears that they were unaware of the consequences as they used the chatbot for its intended purpose of checking for errors in databases and generating minute-points from recorded meetings.
