Italy Imposes Temporary Restrictions on ChatGPT Citing Privacy Considerations

In light of privacy worries, the Italian government has put a temporary ban on OpenAI's ChatGPT, an AI-driven chatbot, according to several reports.

“The Italian SA imposed an immediate temporary limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data by OpenAI, the US-based company developing and managing the platform. An inquiry into the facts of the case was initiated as well.”

An investigation was launched by Italy's data protection authority as detailed in the official statement.

Days after a collective of AI specialists and corporate leaders - including the founder of OpenAI, Elon Musk - issued an open letter to the US Federal Trade Commission requesting a six-month halt on the development of systems more influential than OpenAI's just discharged GPT-4, this move has been enacted.

The Future of Life Institute issued a communique that was endorsed by over a thousand signers, among them Elon Musk, Emad Mostaque (Stability AI CEO), DeepMind (Alphabet's research unit), Yoshua Bengio, and Stuart Russell (both AI luminaries).

They asked for a cessation of the further development of AI until safety protocols were established, enforced, and inspected by independent observers.

According to a statement from Italian authorities, in late March it was made aware that ChatGPT users' conversations and payment details had been exposed as part of a data breach.

In its proclamation, the Italian SA pointed out that no information is given to individuals whose data is collected by Open AI.

It also emphasized that there appears to be no legal foundation for the large-scale collection and manipulation of personal data to 'train' the algorithms of the platform, the statement continued.

The agency must be given the necessary documentation and potential solutions within 20 days before a conclusion is drawn about the business's fate in the nation.

ChatGPT has not been accessible in China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran.

As stated in a New York Times article, OpenAI disclosed that they have disabled the ChatGPT feature for those in Italy and that they are dedicated to safeguarding individuals' privacy.

As per the report, the company declared that they are making a conscious effort to slim down the personal data used to train their A.I. systems like ChatGPT, as they want the A.I. to gain knowledge about the world and not individuals.

Furthermore, they feel that it is necessary to have A.I. regulation.