The AI research community has been divided by an open letter requesting a six month pause in the development of powerful AI models, but not much attention has been paid to a similar demand that could have a real impact: a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against OpenAI, the maker of the popular AI model ChatGPT. Prominent US government officials have announced proposed legislation to regulate AI, and the Center for AI and Digital Policy – a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring fundamental rights in the digital age – has filed the complaint to the FTC just days after the letter began circulating.
The complaint was written by Marc Rotenberg, founder of the Center and professor at Georgetown University Law School. Rotenberg is no stranger to successfully filing complaints with the FTC, having previously taken legal action against companies such as Google and Facebook. His complaint against Google’s Buzz social networking service resulted in a settlement in 2011 that saw Google agree to implement a comprehensive privacy program and to undergo regular privacy audits for 20 years. His complaint against Facebook in 2019 led to the agency imposing one of its largest fines ever at $5 billion.
This current complaint is asking the FTC to stop OpenAI from releasing any models more powerful than GPT-4 until regulations are put in place to ensure safety protocols. Rotenberg believes that finding a balance between pursuing AI innovation and safeguarding human rights does not have to be mutually exclusive, and is looking for the FTC to create regulations that are applied evenly across the industry.
Not everyone shares Rotenberg’s beliefs, however. OpenAI has taken steps to address concerns surrounding GPT-4, and AI experts like Yann LeCun maintain that research should continue to move forward without restriction, while others such as Pedro Domingos are completely opposed to this type of regulation. Yoshua Bengio, a deep learning pioneer, believes the pause is necessary and vital due to ChatGPT passing the Turing test, a measure of machine intelligence proposed in 1950 that’s given a computer system passes when its communication is indistinguishable from a human.
However, government authorities around the world have already begun taking action to impose regulation and oversight in the rapidly advancing AI industry, and Italy’s data protection agency is leading the way for others such as Canada, Germany, and Australia.
Meanwhile, Rotenberg is urging Congress to put pressure on the FTC to take action. With large AI models already widely used in a number of sectors, questions need to be answered to ensure accountability and the safety of consumers, such as the responsibilities of parties involved when advice given by AI is erroneous.
The FTC would not comment on the OpenAI complaint, which has sparked debate over its potential consequences in the research and development of artificial intelligence. However, with the proposal of new legislation being put forward, and the many investigations taking place in different countries around the world, some form of regulations is undoubtedly on the horizon.
OpenAI is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research laboratory racing to build human-level artificial intelligence. Founded in 2015, the non-profit organization has advanced research, pioneered new AI models, and implemented safety measures in deploying AI systems. The “AI for the Common Good” organization is led by founder and CEO Sam Altman and CTO, Greg Brockman. OpenAI seeks to realise the promise of AI with the move to a multi-stakeholder model involving governments, industry partners, academics, users and other researchers.
