The Italian Office for the Protection of Personal Data, an independent authority that ensures the security of user and consumer data, opened an investigation to clarify the precise operation of the ChatGPT artificial intelligence since it considers that the platform collects information from users illegally.
Therefore, Italy blocked the intelligent chatbot that is capable of simulating human conversations and that belongs to the American technology company OpenAI. The independent body also accused this tool of losing data from its users in the conversations they have with the machine and the payment information of their subscribers.
The Italian entity assured, through a statement, that the reasons are “the lack of information for users and all interested parties”, “the absence of a legal basis that justifies the massive collection and storage of personal data in order to ‘train’ the algorithms that manage the operation of the platform”.
He also assured that ChatGPT has other operating problems: “it does not always correspond to the real data”, “the absence of any type of filter”, and “the exposure of minors to totally inadequate answers with respect to their level of development and self-awareness ”.
Italy asked to give Open AI a period of 20 days to comply with the request of the data protection office or, otherwise, it could face a sanction of up to 20 million euros. It added that it will lift the suspension when it shows that it complies with Italian privacy regulations.
The call from Unesco
In 2021, Unesco brought together 193 countries in the midst of the “Global Ethical Framework”, in which they adopted its recommendations to apply “without delay” guidelines to maximize the benefits of AI and reduce the risks that it entails.
After the measure taken by Italy, Unesco reiterated the call to the countries that make up the agreement. “The world needs stricter ethical standards for artificial intelligence: this is the great challenge of our time,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay.
The call of Elon Musk and technological researchers
Likewise, a few days ago, the billionaire businessman Elon Musk together with more than 1,000 technological researchers, among whom are the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak; Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype, in addition to engineers from Meta or Microsoft, also called for a pause in the development of advanced artificial intelligence for at least six months.
“A dangerous race that is leading to the development of more unpredictable models and with increasing capacities… Artificial intelligence systems can pose a profound risk to society and humanity. Unfortunately, it is not being developed with the proper level of planning and care,” they noted in a letter where they expressed their concern.
