On Thursday, European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the body that unites Europe’s national privacy watchdogs, announced the launch of a taskforce responsible for monitoring ChatGPT’s operations – a potentially key development in creating a unified policy for the data privacy rules surrounding artificial intelligence. The move comes following a unilateral decision by Italian authorities to curb ChatGPT usage last month, as well as inspired by similar opinions from Germany’s data protection authorities. The Spanish watchdog, AEPD, has also announced its intention to launch a preliminary investigation into possible data breaches by ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is an AI program that is designed to quickly provide answers to a wide range of user queries – and it’s growing to unprecedented levels of popularity. It has now become the fastest adopted consumer technology in history, boasting over 100 million monthly active users, while also raising questions regarding the dangers posed by its unregulated usage. Governments, experts and citizens across the United States and Europe alike have expressed concern about its potentially prejudicial impact.
Members of the team established by the EDPB are hopeful that the actions taken by this task force will help national watchdogs to bring their respective policies in line with the ultimate common stance, but acknowledge the fact that this may take a lot of time and effort. A source from one such organization lamented that the purpose of their endeavor is not to penalize OpenAI, the Microsoft Corp. backed company behind ChatGPT, but to create transparent policies that consider the rights of data users. The EDPB includes independent authorities from each member country as well as policy experts meant to exchange ideas and bridge different opinions.
OpenAI is a for-profit, venture-backed artificial intelligence research laboratory based in San Francisco, and was established in December 2015 by tech celebrities like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman. The company researches and develops AI technology, focusing mainly on two areas – virtual agents and machine learning. OpenAI has created several notable projects including their chatbot system, ChatGPT, that was used to power the world’s first opensource AI game, “IQ Bot”. OpenAI is also one of the leading providers of artificial intelligence research in the world, currently working on deep learning and robotics.
Greg Brockman, Chief Technology Officer and founder of OpenAI, is well-known tech celebrity who has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence research and development for over a decade. He is an experienced entrepreneur and investor with a deep knowledge of machine learning, software engineering and robotics. Greg has been involved in many projects in the past and has been a vocal advocate for the use of AI in creating economic and social value.
