China's payment and clearing industry association has alerted the country’s payments industry to the potential cyber security risks associated with the use of OpenAI's ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT has prompted growing regulatory concern over potential risks relating to infringement of user rights, copyright protection and manipulation, as organisations across the globe race to rollout similar AI systems.
In early April, Italy became the first country to ban ChatGPT, saying the chatbot unlawfully collects personal data, breaching the country’s data privacy rules.
According to a Reuters report, China's payment and clearing industry association on Monday sent its members a statement warning of the potential pitfalls of using ChatGPT and similar technologies, highlighting risks relating to potential data leaks.
"Payment industry staff must comply with laws and rules when using tools such as ChatGPT, and should not upload confidential information related to the country and the finance industry," according to the statement from the Payment and Clearing Association of China.
While access to ChatGPT is blocked in China, some people have found ways of accessing the chatbot through virtual addresses and mobile numbers.
Launched by OpenAI in November, the text-based ChatGPT has the ability to interact in conversational dialogue form and provide responses that can appear human. It can also draft prose, poetry or even computer code on command.
It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models, and is fine-tuned with supervised and reinforcement learning techniques.
After Italy banned the use of ChatGPT, the country launched a probe over suspected breaches of privacy rules.
In SA, the Information Regulator says it is holding internal discussions on how to approach the regulation of ChatGPT and other AI technologies, to ensure they don’t violate data privacy laws.
Meanwhile, the European Consumer Organisation called on all authorities to investigate the harm that can be caused by AI chatbots.
This, after the European consumer watchdog was notified of a complaint filed with the US Federal Trade Commission by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy, about the potential cyber security risks and privacy practices of ChatGPT and similar technologies.
As European countries examine whether stronger safety measures are required, Germany is among the countries anticipated to follow in Italy's footsteps by banning ChatGPT.
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