ChatGPT Creator Faces First Major Regulatory Threat With FTC Investigation

With synthetic intelligence (AI) flying excessive for Web3 and the broader the world to see and embrace, it shouldn’t be a shock that the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) has turned its consideration to OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, in a brand new investigation, in response to an preliminary report by The Washington Post. 

The company despatched the San Francisco startup a 20-page letter demanding solutions for a way it’s addressing ongoing complaints of misuse of shopper knowledge and circumstances of “hallucination,” i.e., cases the place ChatGPT has made up information or narratives which have brought on reputational hurt.

The FTC’s ask

OpenAI will now function the FTC’s first public case research for a way the company begins to implement shopper safety warnings with respect to AI whereas addressing probably unfair or misleading commerce practices. The corporate’s co-founder Sam Altman testified earlier than Congress in Might, inviting AI laws to return into the combo.

Within the letter, the FTC needs to gauge how nicely customers perceive “the accuracy or reliability of outputs” generated by the corporate’s AI instruments, calling on OpenAI to:

• Present detailed descriptions of all of the complaints the startup has acquired of its merchandise, together with ChatGPT, making “false, deceptive, disparaging or dangerous” statements about folks;

• Present data associated to a safety incident that OpenAI disclosed in March when a system bug allowed some ChatGPT customers to see payment-related info along with buyer knowledge from different person’s chat historical past;

• Present any analysis, testing, or surveys that assess prospects’ understanding of how OpenAI’s merchandise work, how they’re marketed, and the way these AI-based instruments can generate disparaging statements.

Zooming out

The FTC’s focus comes at a time when the company needs to discover several instances of hallucination. The company’s lively mission is speaking that present shopper safety legal guidelines apply to AI, regardless of the Biden Administration’s and Congress’s ongoing battle to place collectively a regulatory framework. 

Final month, Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-NY) predicted that new AI legislation is only a few months away whereas the European Union’s AI Act strikes into its ultimate phases of negotiations.

Vice President Kamala Harris believes that we will each advance AI innovation and defend customers, sharing the administration’s place on Wednesday on the White Home, the place Harris hosted a gaggle of shopper safety advocates and civil liberties to debate the security and safety dangers of AI.