Italy temporarily blocked access to ChatGPT on Friday, and the country’s data privacy regulator said it would begin an investigation into the company behind the popular chatbot, OpenAI.
Consumer advocacy group BEUC also called on national and EU authorities, including data protection watchdogs, to investigate ChatGPT and similar chatbots, following the filing of a request in the U.S. regarding the same issue.
But the impact of this blockade has deeper implications for the European technology ecosystem. There are many companies like us that make use of artificial intelligence technologies to improve our work.
EdgeWatch makes a huge use of machine learning systems to correlate data. But some critical parts such as the interpretations of vulnerabilities and making the information accessible to humans, like reports themselves, are automated through AI models.
While we use a set of proprietary and closed datasets, this sudden witch-hunt has left us worried, and forced us to make last minute modifications to decouple some of our most interesting functionalities.
It is dangerous that legislators are approaching innovation and technology with torches in hand and to curtail the development of European industry, while we see other countries, even entire regions moving steadily forward.