Italy blocks ChatGPT, citing data privacy concerns, as calls for AI regulation grow

Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. It has been a challenging week for OpenAI, as calls for generative AI regulation grow louder: Today, Italy's data protection agency said it was blocking access OpenAI's popular ChatGPT chatbot and had opened a probe due to concerns about a suspected data collection breach. The agency said the restriction was temporary, until OpenAI abides by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. A translation of the announcement said that "a data breach affecting ChatGPT users' conversations and information on payments by subscribers to the service had been reported on 20 March." It added that "no information is provided to users and data subjects whose data are collected by Open AI; more importantly, there appears to be no legal basis underpinning the massive collection and processing of personal data in order to'train' the algorithms on which the platform relies."