The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating OpenAI for suspected violations of consumer protection laws relating to data gathering and privacy. The FTC has ordered OpenAI to give information on the data sources used to train its language models, such as ChatGPT, as well as the safeguards in place to protect personal information inside these datasets. If OpenAI is found guilty, it might face fines and be forced to follow rigorous data-management policies stipulated in a consent decree.
This FTC investigation poses a serious regulatory risk to OpenAI, which has grown in popularity in the field of generative AI since the introduction of ChatGPT. Other complaints against the firm include data harvesting for training reasons. In one lawsuit, 16 anonymous plaintiffs accused OpenAI of collecting massive amounts of personal data from the internet in order to create ChatGPT. Several authors, including Sarah Silverman, have also filed lawsuits against the firm, alleging copyright infringement because their works were used to train the chatbot.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has been an outspoken supporter of generative AI technology, has yet to comment on the current legal issues. Altman has previously raised worries about legal challenges, as well as his reluctance to take OpenAI public due to potential investor conflicts. The FTC has declined to comment on the probe, and OpenAI has not responded immediately.
