Italy has become the first western country to ban artificial intelligence based chatbot ChatGPT. According to Al Jazeera, the international news outlet Al Jazeera, citing sources from the country’s data protection authority Watchdog, reported that Italy’s data protection watchdog submitted a report on ChatGPT to the authorities on March 20. Following the report, the country’s data protection authority said on Friday (March 31) that the artificial intelligence (AI) technology had been banned due to security concerns. This decision has come into action immediately.
According to the report of another international media BBC, the Italian government has written to OpenAI, the company that produced Chat GPT, asking for answers about various complaints related to ChatGPT. The company will have to pay a fine of 21.7 million dollars to the Italian government if it does not respond satisfactorily to the letter within the next 20 days.
ChatGPT was developed by US startup OpenAI in collaboration with Microsoft. The chatbot can answer questions like a human. One can even copy the writing style of others.
Microsoft has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on its development. ChatGPT was added to search engine Bing last month. Since its launch in November 2022, the chatbot has been used by millions of people.
However, there are concerns in various quarters about the potential risks of using artificial intelligence. For example, millions of people may lose their jobs due to this. Besides, there is also the danger of spreading misinformation and bias with the use of AI.
Earlier this week, tech industry figures including Elon Musk called for a moratorium on the use of such AI systems. They fear that the competition to develop AI technology has spiraled out of control.
The Italian watchdog said ChatGPT was banned because it could not verify the age of users and did not understand the privacy of their data. The privacy breach regarding user conversations and payment information on the platform was noticed on March 20.
According to them, there is no legal basis to ‘justify the massive collection and storage of personal data’ for the purpose of ‘training’ the algorithms underlying ChatGPT’s activities. Also, as there is no mechanism to verify the age of users, the chatbot ‘may give inappropriate answers compared to minors’ level of development and awareness’.
The Italian authorities said ChatGPT would have 20 days to respond to what measures would be taken to address their concerns. A fine of up to two million euros or four percent of annual income can be imposed if the allegations are proven.
Watchdog’s report also said, ‘ChatGPT collects and stores massive amounts of people’s personal data to run programs and algorithms, which has no legal basis.’ Mentioning that this artificial intelligence chatbot is not ‘sensitive’ to children, it further states, ‘As this chatbot is not capable of verifying the age of users, it often provides answers to various questions of children and minors, which are uncomfortable based on their age and mental maturity.’