The BEUC said that the content produced by these chatbots is often factually incorrect and misleading.
A European consumer protection organization has reportedly raised concern about artificial intelligence chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The BEUC, which is short for Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs, has urged the EU consumer protection authorities to investigate the AI technology and its potential harm, according to a Reuters report.
The non-profit organization has written separate letters to the network of consumer safety authorities (or CSN network) and the network of consumer protection authorities (or CPC network) earlier this month, the report added. The BEUC said that the content produced by these chatbots is often factually incorrect, misleading, and can result in deceptive advertising, the report noted; adding that young consumers and children are more prone to the risks caused by these chatbots.
Describing it as a “matter of urgency,” the lobby group’s Deputy Director General Ursula Pachl wrote a letter to the CPC network and the European Commission asking to investigate risks posed by the AI systems. She further urged the authorities to identify the presence of these AI chatbots in the consumer market and sought remedial action to avoid consumer harm.
BEUC is an umbrella group for 46 consumer organizations across 32 countries that works to ensure that consumer rights are protected in EU policies and legislation and to promote a high level of consumer protection across Europe. Not just BEUC, but several other authorities across the globe have started studying and investigating the impact and potential damage that such AI platforms could cause.
Earlier this month, the French data protection agency Commission Nationale Informatique & Libertés, or CNIL, started investigating complaints about OpenAI’s artificial intelligence platform. The move follows Italy’s temporary ban on ChatGPT due to privacy concerns. Prior to this, Spain also joined the growing list of countries that are investigating the impact of AI platforms.
Reportedly Spain’s data protection agency also asked the European Union’s privacy watchdog to evaluate privacy concerns surrounding ChatGPT. The United States is also beginning to study the rules to regulate AI platforms like ChatGPT.
Short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, ChatGPT is a popular AI text generator and has been the center of attention since its launch in November due to its human-like response. OpenAI, the parent of the AI-based text generator, has a “multimillion-dollar investment” by American tech major Microsoft.
Several big players like Google and Baidu gearing up to emulate the success of OpenAI chatbot. Just yesterday, Russian lender Sberbank announced that it has developed a technology named Gigachat as a rival to ChatGPT. Gigachat is currently available only in an invite-only testing mode.
