Investigation against ChatGPT: US authorities are investigating possible harm to users

The US consumer protection agency FTC has launched an investigation into the American company OpenAI. It should be checked whether the successful use of ChatGPT causes any harm to the user.

For example, by generating untrue information or mishandling user data. The FTC informed the Microsoft-backed California startup about the investigation and sent a long list of questions, which the Washington Post newspaper published.

Personal details turned up in answers

The FTC, which is also a competition authority, is particularly interested in the protection of personal data used by the platform. FTC chief Lina Khan said during a congressional committee hearing on Wednesday that her agency was concerned about possible defamatory results from ChatGPT.

“We’ve heard reports of people’s personal information appearing in response to someone else’s request,” Khan said. “We have heard of abusive, defamatory statements. Untrue things are coming up. We are concerned about this type of fraud and deceit,” she added.

ChatGPT creates texts using artificial intelligence (AI). Users can specify individual commands or phrases, which the system then independently supplements with huge amounts of data from the Internet. Critics counter that it’s unclear where ChatGPT and its competitors get their data from and how they handle it.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independently operating US federal agency and is responsible for consumer protection in addition to trade oversight.

(sda/afp)