Tech

As ChatGPT’s popularity explodes, U.S. lawmakers take an interest

Published

10 months ago

February 13, 2023

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As ChatGPT's popularity explodes, U.S. lawmakers take an interest

ChatGPT, a fast-growing artificial intelligence program, has drawn praise for its ability to write answers quickly to a wide range of queries, and attracted U.S. lawmakers’ attention with questions about its impact on national security and education.

ChatGPT was estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history, and a growing target for regulation.

It was created by OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), and made available to the public for free. Its ubiquity has generated fear that generative AI such as ChatGPT could be used to spread disinformation, while educators worry it will be used by students to cheat.

Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat on the House of Representatives Science Committee, said in a recent opinion piece in the New York Times that he was excited about AI and the “incredible ways it will continue to advance society,” but also “freaked out by A.I., specifically A.I. that is left unchecked and unregulated.”

Lieu introduced a resolution written by ChatGPT that said Congress should focus on AI “to ensure that the development and deployment of AI is done in a way that is safe, ethical, and respects the rights and privacy of all Americans, and that the benefits of AI are widely distributed and the risks are minimized.”

In January, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went to Capitol Hill where he met with tech-oriented lawmakers such as Senators Mark Warner, Ron Wyden and Richard Blumenthal and Representative Jake Auchincloss, according to aides to the Democratic lawmakers.

An aide to Wyden said the lawmaker pressed Altman on the need to make sure AI did not include biases that would lead to discrimination in the real world, like housing or jobs.
“While Senator Wyden believes AI has tremendous potential to speed up innovation and research, he is laser-focused on ensuring automated systems don’t automate discrimination in the process,” said Keith Chu, an aide to Wyden.

A second congressional aide described the discussions as focusing on the speed of changes in AI and how it could be used.

Prompted by worries about plagiarism, ChatGPT has already been banned in schools in New York and Seattle, according to media reports. One congressional aide said the concern they were hearing from constituents came mainly from educators focused on cheating.

OpenAI said in a statement: “We don’t want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in schools or anywhere else, so we’re already developing mitigations to help anyone identify text generated by that system.”

In an interview with Time, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, said the company welcomed input, including from regulators and governments. “It’s not too early (for regulators to get involved),” she said.

Andrew Burt, managing partner of BNH.AI, a law firm focused on AI liability, pointed to the national security concerns, adding that he has spoken with lawmakers who are studying whether to regulate ChatGPT and similar AI systems such as Google’s Bard, though he said he could not disclose their names.

“The whole value proposition of these types of AI systems is that they can generate content at scales and speeds that humans simply can’t,” he said.

“I would expect malicious actors, non-state actors and state actors that have interests that are adversarial to the United States to be using these systems to generate information that could be wrong or could be harmful.”

ChatGPT itself, when asked how it should be regulated, demurred and said: “As a neutral AI language model, I don’t have a stance on specific laws that may or may not be enacted to regulate AI systems like me.” But it then went on to list potential areas of focus for regulators, such as data privacy, bias and fairness, and transparency in how answers are written.

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Tech

Amazon’s AWS appeals to corporate customers with new chatbot, AI safety measures

Published

20 hours ago

November 29, 2023

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Amazon's AWS appeals to corporate customers with new chatbot, AI safety measures

Amazon (AMZN.O) is trying to lure big corporate customers to it AWS cloud computing service with a new chatbot for businesses, and by offering to guard them against legal and reputational damage that can come from the output of artificial intelligence.

The new chatbot, called Q, is designed to help with productivity by helping workers summarize important documents and support tickets and chat via communication apps such as Slack, the company announced at its annual cloud computing conference Tuesday in Las Vegas. The software can also automatically make changes to businesses source code, speeding development, the company said.

The new software arrives roughly a year after OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene, setting off a frenzy of investment in generative AI startups. Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and others have announced their own chatbots, which can have human-like conversations with users to help with daily tasks.

AWS CEO Adam Selipsky, at Amazon’s annual cloud computing conference in Las Vegas, announced a new safeguard against objectionable content on generative AI applications, called Guardrails for Bedrock. The service allows users to filter out harmful content, he said.

Because generative AI is trained on publicly available content, offensive words or other objectionable content can slip through into results from users’ prompts. That is particularly problematic for younger users, in times of global conflict or during elections when generative AI’s output in search results can influence opinion.

Safety advocates have cautioned that generative AI could operate out of the control of its human creators and pump out increasingly dangerous content or operate entire systems without oversight. In particular, they worry about the software putting influential – and convincing – content on social media sites like X and Facebook (META.O).

Selipsky said the new service was important for customers to put limits they see fit on the generative AI they use.

“For example, a bank could configure an online assistant to refrain from providing investment advice,” said Selipsky. “Or, to prevent inappropriate content, an e-commerce site could ensure that its online assistant doesn’t use hate speech or insults.”

As part of its appeal to corporations, Amazon said the Q chatbot will offer businesses limits so that it can keep sensitive data from employees who should not have access to it. Pricing will start at $20 per user, per year.

Also at the conference, Amazon announced it would indemnify its customers against lawsuits based on the misuse of copyrighted materials. Stock photography company Getty Images, for instance, sued Stability AI earlier this year, alleging it scraped its website for images without permission.

Guardrails for Bedrock is in limited preview today, Amazon said. The Seattle company did not provide additional details about its indemnification policy.

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Tech

TikTok obtaining Indonesia e-commerce permit

Published

21 hours ago

November 29, 2023

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TikTok obtaining Indonesia e-commerce permit

Short video app TikTok is in the process of obtaining an e-commerce permit from Indonesia’s government, state news agency Antara reported, citing the deputy trade minister.

In September, Indonesia banned e-commerce transactions on social media, a major blow for TikTok, which had pledged to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy.

“Before, they (TikTok) were not compliant, they didn’t have the permit. Now they are taking care of it,” deputy trade minister Jerry Sambuaga was quoted saying by Antara on Tuesday.

He said a partnership with a local firm could be done providing it was in accordance with regulations.

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia, a country of more than 270 million people. It has been looking to translate the large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source.

TikTok did not immediately respond to request for comment regarding the deputy minister’s remarks.

Reuters reported earlier this month that TikTok was in talks on possible partnerships with several Indonesian e-commerce companies, including GoTo’s e-commerce unit (GOTO.JK) Tokopedia, Bukalapak.com (BUKA.JK) and Blibli (BELI.JK).

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Tech

Japan space agency hit with cyberattack, rocket and satellite info not accessed

Published

21 hours ago

November 29, 2023

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Japan space agency hit with cyberattack, rocket and satellite info not accessed

Japan’s space agency was hit with a cyberattack but the information the hackers accessed did not include anything important for rocket and satellite operations, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“There was a possibility of unauthorised access by exploiting the vulnerability of network equipment,” the spokesperson at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said, declining to elaborate on details such as when the attack took place.

The space agency learned of the possibility of the unauthorised access after receiving information from an external organisation and conducting an internal investigation, the spokesperson said, declining to identify the organisation’s name.

The investigation is ongoing, the spokesperson said.

Japanese media reported Wednesday that the cyberattack occurred during the summer and the police became aware of the attack and notified JAXA this autumn. The Yomiuri newspaper first reported the incident.

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