EU and US May Also Move to Regulate
OpenAI CEO Expected to Appeal for Deregulation
Italy has declared a suspension of the interactive artificial intelligence (AI) service ChatGPT, and experts predict that country-specific regulatory issues targeting ChatGPT will spread, starting with Italy. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is known to be visiting 17 countries to appeal for regulatory relaxation, drawing attention to what breakthroughs will be made between ChatGPT and national regulations in the future.
On the 3rd, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported an interview with data protection law expert attorney Sugimoto Takeshige. In the interview, Attorney Sugimoto analyzed the reasons why Italy suspended ChatGPT services and explained how the global regulatory trend is expected to unfold.
He analyzed, "First, Italy's decision was based on the judgment that ChatGPT violated the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)." Previously, Italian government authorities announced that they took such measures after receiving reports of data breaches in conversations between users and ChatGPT and launching an investigation.
ChatGPT collects user data during conversations and processes data gathered from others on the internet to generate responses. The problem was that the developer, OpenAI, did not fulfill its obligation to provide information disclosing the handling of personal data.
Additionally, in the process of collecting personal data to train ChatGPT's algorithms, it does not obtain the "explicit consent" required by the GDPR. Attorney Sugimoto argued that this could be interpreted as a legal violation.
He further emphasized that since ChatGPT's responses may not always be factually accurate, inaccurate data could be handled, and the lack of age verification procedures during use could result in minors receiving inappropriate responses unsuitable for their age, which could also be problematic.
Due to this, Attorney Sugimoto claimed that the issue of GDPR violations is likely to spread across all EU countries. In the EU, when investigating GDPR-related matters, the country where the European branch of the accused company is located is responsible. However, since OpenAI does not have a branch in Europe, the country where the complaint is filed will conduct the investigation independently. This means the number of authorities involved in legal disputes will increase across all EU member states.
Moreover, the EU is preparing legislation called the "AI Act," separate from the GDPR, which is also likely to impose restrictions on ChatGPT. The AI Act classifies AI into four levels based on the degree of human rights infringement, and AI systems or services with the most serious "unacceptable risk" can be banned by the EU.
Not only the EU but also the United States is expected to join the regulatory efforts soon. The Center for AI Digital Policy (CAIDP), a nonprofit organization investigating AI ethics issues in the U.S., recently requested the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban the commercial use of ChatGPT-4. U.S. authorities plan to initiate an investigation into ChatGPT based on the FTC Act.
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