The leader of Italy’s privacy watchdog expressed optimism on Tuesday that OpenAI will modify its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, so that it could resume operations in the nation by the end of April. The Data Protection Authority had temporarily suspended the platform due to data privacy concerns, making Italy the first Western nation to do so.
Pasquale Stanzione, director general of the Data Protection Authority, told the Corriere della Sera daily, the organization is “prepared to reopen ChatGPT on April 30 if there is a willingness on the part of OpenAI to take useful steps”.
When ChatGPT was first introduced last year, it gained a lot of attention because of its ability to generate essays, songs, exams and even news pieces from simple suggestions. However, users and other watchdogs criticized the platform for being unclear from where it gathered and stored data and how it managed them. OpenAI was put to task for failure to legally justify the extensive data gathering and storage for training its algorithms and lack of transparency about the identity of the data collectors.
To ensure the chatbot does not provide any outdated or inappropriate answers, the director general suggested that the OpenAI team indicate a method for risk reduction and confirmation of user’s age. He also mentioned that it is important for users to be informed that their data is used for a specific purpose and to train algorithms.
Since its release, OpenAI, with the help of a partnership with Microsoft, has been able to make use of the popular ChatGPT technology in multiple different products like its Bing search engine. The success of OpenAI has encouraged a number of companies and venture capitalists to invest in different AI projects.
Open AI is a San Francisco-based research laboratory that specializes in artificial intelligence. Founded in 2015, the team of scientists, engineers, and business leaders is focused on advancing digital intelligence in the way that benefits humanity. Pasquale Stanzione is the director general of Italy’s Data Protection Authority, a governmental body responsible fro monitoring and enforcing data protection legislation.
