The media reported that Microsoft temporarily blocked its employees’ access to ChatGPT, the world’s most popular artificial intelligence-based chatbot developed by OpenAI.
In this case, in a sense, a delicate circumstance is that the specified technology giant invested heavily in the startup that created the mentioned chatbot. The media, citing insiders who appear in this news as anonymous, report that the decision to block Microsoft employees’ access to the OpenAI digital product was made in order to ensure security. There is also information that it was a surprise for the management of the company that created the world’s most popular software for personal computers called Windows.
The ban on the use of the chatbot by Microsoft employees was lifted as soon as possible. Currently, representatives of this company have full access to ChatGPT.
In a comment to the media, Microsoft representatives said that the blocking was a mistake. The tech giant recommends its employees and customers use Bing Chat Enterprise and ChatGPT Enterprise, which are enterprise versions of machine intelligence-based chatbots that offer consumers a higher level of privacy and security. The standard configurations of the mentioned digital products are less effective from the point of view of the said aspects. But this does not mean that the corresponding versions of chatbots are dangerous to use. Bing Chat Enterprise and ChatGPT Enterprise provide consumers with guarantees that their data will remain limited to the company’s devices and will be separated from the personal information of other customers.
The media claim that the incident with the blocking of access to ChatGPT is one of the manifestations of growing concerns about such artificial intelligence services. Several companies have already officially introduced restrictions on the use of relevant digital products. For example, Apple has limited the application of similar machine intelligence tools. This company is currently developing its patented artificial intelligence technology. JPMorgan Chase and Verizon have also decided to block corporate access to ChatGPT.
The internal Microsoft message contains information that as a result of the incident, the ability of employees to use some other artificial intelligence tools was also limited. The access problem affected Bing Chat, which has the same basic technology as ChatGPT.
JPMorgan Chase in February decided to impose an internal ban on the use of the world’s most popular AI-based chatbot due to compliance issues related to third-party software apps. At that time, the media reported that artificial intelligence tools work with confidential data, which is why banks in this case should exercise maximum caution.
In March, the nonprofit group Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), asking the regulator to investigate OpenAI and stop creating large language models for commercial purposes. This group stated that the GPT-4 from the mentioned company does not meet the requirements of the FTC that the use of artificial intelligence should be transparent, explicable, fair, and empirically justified while increasing accountability.
