The US consumer protection agency, the FTC, is investigating the activity of OpenAI, creator of the artificial intelligence (AI) interface ChatGPT, in particular data security but also certain content generated by the conversational robot .
The FTC, which also acts as the competition authority, sent OpenAI a long list of elements it wants from the San Francisco startup, according to the document, published by the washington posta classic procedure prior to possible prosecution or a possible amicable agreement.
She is particularly interested in securing the personal data used by the platform.
OpenAI has acknowledged that a technical flaw had led, at the end of March, to the disclosure of information relating to certain users of its services, mainly their email address and part of their bank details.
Separately, the FTC’s requests refer to user complaints that OpenAI’s language models, including ChatGPT, have generated “false, misleading, derogatory, or harmful” responses about individuals.
Asked by AFP, neither OpenAI nor the FTC responded immediately.
The FTC is also questioning OpenAI on the measures taken to prevent the generation of erroneous content and false information by the so-called generative AI interface, i.e. capable of producing complete answers to any type of request in everyday language. .
The consumer protection agency has already indicated that it is closely following the development of generative AI, which has both fascinated and worried since the launch of ChatGPT last November.
“We have heard of reports of sensitive information about one person being disclosed when the request was made by someone else,” FTC Chairman Lina Khan said Thursday during a briefing. hearing in Congress.
She also reported “defamatory, completely false statements” allegedly produced by generative artificial intelligence interfaces. “It is this type of deception that worries us. »
On the competition side, Ms. Khan has already indicated that her agency is closely monitoring the structuring of this sector to prevent already established companies from restricting competition.
