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Open AI, the creator of the very popular chatbot ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for natural language processing, is facing a class action lawsuit in California over alleged removal of users’ personal information from the internet.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday morning by local law firm Clarkson. The lawsuit alleged that Open AI trained the ChatGPT model using data collected from millions of social media comments, blog posts, Wikipedia articles, and family recipes without the consent of the respective users. Thus, OpenAI violated the copyrights and privacy of millions of Internet users.
The 16 named plaintiffs in the case alleged that Open AI unlawfully gained access to private information as a result of individuals interacting with ChatGPT. If these allegations are true, the defendant would be violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a law that has precedent for web scraping cases. Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, was also named as a defendant in the case. Open AI did not respond to Cointelegraph’s requests for comment at press time.
The lawsuit also alleged that OpenAI products “use stolen personal information, including personal information, from hundreds of millions of Internet users, including children of all ages, without their informed consent or knowledge.”
“By harvesting the previously little-known personal data of millions and misappropriating it to develop unstable, untested technology, OpenAI is putting everyone at risk that is incalculable, but unacceptable for any responsible data protection and use,” Clarkson said.
Over the past year, artificial intelligence technology has gained a lot of popularity thanks to the huge popularity of ChatGPT. The rise of AI Tech has also prompted governments around the world to take notice, with countries like the US and Europe already proposing specific laws for the nascent industry.
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On June 20, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced the National Commission on Artificial Intelligence Act, a bill that would create a commission to study the country’s approach to artificial intelligence. Similarly, the European Parliament passed the EU AI Act in the second week of June. The legislation will establish a framework for the management and oversight of the artificial intelligence industry in the European Union.