The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) recently revealed that they had initiated a preliminary investigation against US company OpenAI, the developers of the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot. OpenAI’s ChatGPT language model had gained over a million users within a week of its launch in late November 2022, raising questions about its potential for disrupting the human text writers market. Furthermore, the Agency requested that the European Data Protection Board (EBDP) include ChatGPT on the agenda of their plenary meeting on April 13th, 2021, in order to promote inter-agency cooperation.
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that is financially supported by tech entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman. Based in San Francisco, the company’s goal is to advance the field of Artificial Intelligence by creating a future in which society is more considered and intelligent. Founded in 2015, by Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI has since released a host of open-source projects to help spur the use of AI in a myriad of applications.
Separately, Spanish Agency also revealed that it has asked the EDPB to set up a working group or task force that will promote cooperation and exchange information on the actions taken by the Data Protection agencies.
The person in charge of the investigation is AEPD’s Director, Cesar Casas. Cesar was appointed as Director in 2017, and has played a major role in putting Digital Rights at the forefront of Spanish data protection policies. He works in close collaboration with the European Data Protection Board and the European Data Protection ageneices, offering technical assistance and coordinating cross-border disputes. Cesar is looking to maximize his efforts in the ChatGPT investigation in order to ensure the rules are being followed and proper precautions are taken in order to prevent any further breaches of data protection regulations.
