Concerns are growing about artificial intelligence (A.I.) platform ChatGPT and governments around the world are starting to take action.
Italy has become the first country to ban ChatGPT, citing privacy concerns related to the popular chatbot that was created by U.S. start-up OpenAI.
The Italian government said that ChatGPT will remain banned in the European country until an investigation into its practices and impact on consumer privacy is concluded.
At the same time, federal regulators in Canada are investigating both ChatGPT and OpenAI after receiving a complaint about the collection, use and disclosure of personal information without consent.
Canadian Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said in a written statement that artificial intelligence and its impacts on privacy are a top priority for his office.
News of the actions in Italy and Canada come as the German government has also threatened to ban ChatGPT, and the European Union (EU) is in the process of negotiating a law that would classify A.I. based on perceived levels of risk.
Last week, a group of technology leaders, including Tesla (TSLA) chief executive officer (CEO) Elon Musk and Apple (APPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak called in an open letter for a six-month pause on artificial intelligence development.
The letter asked: “Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us?”
ChatGPT was launched last November and can be used to do everything from write essays and computer code to compose songs and draw pictures.
The ChatGPT app has become the most popular in history, having been downloaded more than 10 million times in less than six months.
While OpenAI is a privately held company, it has received a $10 billion U.S. investment from Microsoft (MSFT), which is incorporating the A.I. technology into its Bing search engine.
Governments around the world are growing increasingly concerned about the potential dangers of advanced A.I.
Worries include the potential for disinformation, plagiarism, financial fraud, and privacy violations.
