After several watchdogs penned letters to various safety authorities alerting of dangers of AI, EU urges US and Europe to use already-existing laws for new AI legislation
Artificial intelligence (AI), a cutting-edge technology, has sparked debate ever since it entered the everyday lives of regular people. Experts are unsure whether the technology heralds the dawn of science or the end of the world.
Following up on that discussion, European Union consumer
protection organisations urged regulators on Tuesday to look into the kind
of artificial intelligence powering ChatGPT, citing potential dangers that
put people at risk and the time lag before the bloc's ground-breaking AI
regulations take effect.
In a coordinated effort, 13 watchdog
organisations sent letters to their national competition, consumer, data
protection, and product safety authorities, alerting them to a number of
issues with generative AI.
In a letter to US President Joe Biden, a transatlantic alliance
of consumer advocacy organisations also urged him to take steps to safeguard
consumers from potential generative AI harms, according to ABC News.
Recently,
a new breed of AI has emerged, giving chatbots like ChatGPT the ability to
produce text, images, videos, and audio that resemble human work. Europe has
led the world in efforts to regulate AI, which have become more urgent as a
result.
Currently, the world's first comprehensive set of rules for the
technology is being finalised by the EU, but they will not go into effect
for another two years.
The groups urged European and American
leaders to use already-existing laws as well as introduce new legislation to
address the potential negative effects of generative AI.
They cited a report by the Norwegian Consumer Council outlining
the risks posed by AI chatbots, including the provision of false medical
information, manipulation of people, fabrication of news stories, and
unauthorised use of sizable amounts of personal data obtained from the
internet.
Meanwhile, consumer advocacy organisations from nations
such as Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece, and Denmark warn that
although the EU's AI Act addresses some of the issues, it will not go into
effect for several years, "leaving consumers unprotected from a technology
that is insufficiently regulated in the meantime and developing at a great
pace."
Authorities have already taken some action. The maker of
ChatGPT, OpenAI, was ordered by Italy's privacy watchdog to temporarily
cease processing user personal data while it looked into a potential data
breach. Additionally, OpenAI and ChatGPT are being investigated in France,
Spain, and Canada.
