The US Federal Trade Commission has sent a request for information to startup OpenAI Inc. as part of a probe into its ChatGPT conversational AI bot, according to a person familiar with the request. The document request was sent recently to the Microsoft Corp.-backed AI company seeking information on whether ChatGPT harms consumers, according to the person, who asked not to be named discussing a non-public investigation. FTC Chair Lina Khan, who is set to appear before Congress Thursday, has raised concerns about AI, saying enforcers "need to be vigilant early" with transformative tools like artificial intelligence. The Washington Post earlier reported on the FTC's probe.

"Google does not own the internet, it does not own our creative works, it does not own our expressions of our personhood, pictures of our families and children, or anything else simply because we share it online," the plaintiffs' attorney Ryan Clarkson said in a statement.

WASHINGTON--The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial-intelligence system has harmed individuals by publishing false information about them, according to a letter the agency sent to the company.

OpenAI's ChatGPT technology has become the talk of the town, with its capabilities seemingly drawn from the realms of science fiction. Impressive artworks and complex texts being produced without humans – so far so cool. But have you realised the potential privacy issues which the revolutionary technology potentially creates? This technology, along with rivals such as Google's Bard, is attracting millions of queries and searches every day. ChatGPT alone had gained over 100m users by January 2023, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever.[1]

Its 12-strong team plans to "understand the true nature of the universe", according to an announcement posted on the xAI website. "I don't know what the deal with the Xs is," says Catherine Flick at De Montfort University, UK. "He obviously just likes Xs." It is an extension of Musk's longstanding interest in AI and his return to the field after pulling funding from OpenAI back in 2018. Musk had been the primary bankroller for the company – which created ChatGPT – at its launch in 2015, appearing on stage at an academic conference announcing $1 billion in funding. Musk reportedly withdrew from OpenAI after he bid to take over running it, worrying it had lost ground to Google in developing AI technology, and was rejected by co-founder Sam Altman.

One question is constant in the race to create AI: Should code be held privately or made available to everyone as "open-source"? OpenAI has kept data for projects like GPT-4 close to its chest, while Meta has allowed researchers and academics to access its language model, LLaMA. Now, Meta is allegedly set to "imminently" release a new commercial version that companies can customize, the Financial Times reports. The move could help Meta catch up to fellow AI creators OpenAI and Google, with businesses able to build tailored software with the new model. "The competitive landscape of AI is going to completely change in the coming months, in the coming weeks maybe, when there will be open source platforms that are actually as good as the ones that are not," Yann LeCun, Meta's vice-president and Chief AI scientist, said at a July conference.

Elon Musk has launched an artificial intelligence startup that will be "pro-humanity", as he said the world needed to worry about the prospect of a "terminator future" in order to avoid the most apocalyptic AI scenarios. Musk said xAI would seek to build a system that would be safe because it was "maximally curious" about humanity rather than having moral guidelines programmed into it. The world's wealthiest person was one of the signatories to a letter this year that called for a pause in building large AI models such as ChatGPT, the chatbot built by the US firm OpenAI. There are growing fears that development of AI technology will race beyond human control. Speaking on a Spaces discussion on Twitter, Musk saida pause no longer seemed realistic and he hopped xAI would provide an alternative path.

The agency's focus on such fabrications comes after numerous high-profile reports of the chatbot producing incorrect information that could damage people's reputations. Mark Walters, a radio talk show host in Georgia sued OpenAI for defamation, alleging the chabot made up legal claims against him. The lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT falsely claimed that Walters, the host of "Armed American Radio," was accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the Second Amendment Foundation. The response was provided in response to a question about a lawsuit about the foundation that Walters is not a party to, according to the complaint.

Google's parent company has announced the rollout of its chatbot rival to ChatGPT in the European Union and Brazil, as tech firms ramp up their competition to dominate artificial intelligence. Bard is now available in 27 EU countries and Brazil, as well as 40 new languages, including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi and Spanish, Alphabet said on Thursday. "Curiosity and imagination are the driving forces behind human creativity," Bard's product lead Jack Krawczyk and vice president Amarnag Subramanya said in a blog post. "Whether it's a child inventing a game, friends dreaming up their next adventure, or an entrepreneur coming up with a new business idea, our ability to imagine new possibilities is one of our most innate human qualities. That's why we created Bard: to help you explore that curiosity, augment your imagination and ultimately get your ideas off the ground – not just by answering your questions, but by helping you build on them."

Elon Musk, who has hinted for months that he wants to build an alternative to the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot, has announced the formation of what he's calling xAI, whose goal is to "understand the true nature of the universe." On a website unveiled Wednesday, xAI said its team will be led by Musk and staffed by executives who have worked at a broad range of companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence, including Google's DeepMind, Microsoft and Tesla, as well as academic institutions such as the University of Toronto. Musk was involved in the creation of OpenAI, the highest-profile AI startup and developer of ChatGPT. But he has frequently and publicly criticized OpenAI since he left the board in 2018, especially after it created a for-profit arm the following year. He has said he believes it to be "effectively controlled by Microsoft."