OpenAI, The Creator Of ChatGPT, Faces a US Probe Over Libellous Output

(CTN News) – OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has been under investigation by the United States’ competition watchdog amid suspicions that it scraped public data and published false and defamatory information on its website that violated the law.

A letter of 20 pages has been sent to OpenAI by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting detailed information about its technology and privacy protections, including any efforts it is making to prevent a repeat of the incident in which its groundbreaking chatbot posted false and disparaging information about members of the public.

As of Thursday, the Washington Post had been the first to report on the “extensive” investigation.

Al Jazeera contacted the FTC for comment, but the agency declined to comment.

According to Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI, the leak of the regulator’s probe is a disappointment and does not help to rebuild trust in the company.

We spent six months or more after we completed the initial training on the new ChatGPT in order to make it safer and more aligned before we released it, Altman stated on Twitter in reference to ChatGPT’s more advanced successor.

When we fall short of our goals, we are transparent about the limitations of our technology. We strive to protect the privacy of our users and design our systems so that they can learn about the world, not about individual users.

Risks associated with existence OpenAI

This investigation could represent the strongest regulatory measure to date to rein in the nascent field of artificial intelligence, whose rapid advancement has generated both excitement and concern about the existence of humanity.

As reported by a congressional committee on Wednesday, FTC chair Lina Khan expressed concern about “fraud and deception” associated with ChatGPT.

“We have heard about libel, defamatory statements, and flatly untrue things emerging,” Khan said, without disclosing the investigation by the FTC.

When OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November, its uncanny ability to mimic human speech captured the attention of the tech world.

However, the chatbot has also generated controversy due to its tendency to produce inaccurate and offensive content.

As tech companies continue to develop more advanced versions of the technology, global regulators have been scrambling to develop rules to govern OpenAI AI.

In the United States, the Senate is currently considering two bipartisan AI legislation aimed at ensuring US competitiveness and improving transparency surrounding the government’s use of AI.

EU officials reached a preliminary agreement in April regarding legislation that would categorize artificial intelligence technologies as posing an unacceptable risk, a high risk, or a limited risk.

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