The attorneys general of California and Delaware on Friday warned OpenAI they have \u201cserious concerns\u201d about the safety of its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, especially for children and teens.<\/p>\n
The two state officials, who have unique powers to regulate nonprofits such as OpenAI, sent the letter to the company after a meeting with its legal team earlier this week in Wilmington, Delaware.<\/p>\n
California AG Rob Bonta and Delaware AG Kathleen Jennings have spent months reviewing OpenAI\u2019s plans to restructure its business, with an eye on \u201censuring rigorous and robust oversight of OpenAI\u2019s safety mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
But they said they were concerned by \u201cdeeply troubling reports of dangerous interactions between\u201d chatbots and their users, including the \u201cheartbreaking death by suicide of one young Californian after he had prolonged interactions with an OpenAI chatbot, as well as a similarly disturbing murder-suicide in Connecticut. Whatever safeguards were in place did not work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The parents of the 16-year-old California boy, who died in April, sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, last month.<\/p>\n
The chair of OpenAI\u2019s board, Bret Taylor, said in a statement Friday that the company was \u201cfully committed\u201d to addressing the concerns raised by the attorneys general.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are heartbroken by these tragedies and our deepest sympathies are with the families,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cSafety is our highest priority and we\u2019re working closely with policymakers around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded as a nonprofit with a safety-focused mission to build better-than-human artificial intelligence, OpenAI had recently sought to transfer more control to its for-profit arm from its nonprofit before dropping those plans in May after discussions with the offices of Bonta and Jennings and other nonprofit groups.<\/p>\n
The two elected officials, both Democrats, have oversight of any such changes because OpenAI is incorporated in Delaware and operates out of California, where it has its headquarters in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
After dropping its initial plans, OpenAI has been seeking the officials\u2019 approval for a \u201crecapitalization,\u201d in which the nonprofit\u2019s existing for-profit arm will convert into a public benefit corporation that has to consider the interests of both shareholders and the mission.<\/p>\n
Bonta and Jennings wrote Friday of their \u201cshared view\u201d that OpenAI and the industry need better safety measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recent deaths are unacceptable,\u201d they wrote. \u201cThey have rightly shaken the American public\u2019s confidence in OpenAI and this industry. OpenAI \u2013 and the AI industry \u2013 must proactively and transparently ensure AI\u2019s safe deployment. Doing so is mandated by OpenAI\u2019s charitable mission, and will be required and enforced by our respective offices.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter to OpenAI from the California and Delaware officials comes after a bipartisan group of 44 attorneys general warned the company and other tech firms last week of \u201cgrave concerns\u201d about the safety of children interacting with AI chatbots that can respond with \u201csexually suggestive conversations and emotionally manipulative behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attorneys general specifically called out Meta for chatbots that reportedly engaged in flirting and \u201cromantic role-play\u201d with children, saying they were alarmed that these chatbots \u201care engaging in conduct that appears to be prohibited by our respective criminal laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, declined to comment on the letter but recently rolled out new controls that aim to block its chatbots from talking with teens about self-harm, suicide, disordered eating and inappropriate romantic conversations, and instead directs them to expert resources. OpenAI also said it would roll out new parental controls, including a method to notify parents \u201cwhen the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attorneys general said the companies would be held accountable for harming children, noting that in the past, regulators had not moved swiftly to respond to the harms posed by new technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you knowingly harm kids, you will answer for it,\u201d the Aug. 25 letter ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The attorneys general of California and Delaware on Friday warned OpenAI they have \u201cserious concerns\u201d about the safety of its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, especially for children and teens. The two state officials, who have unique powers to regulate nonprofits such as OpenAI, sent the letter to the company after a meeting with its legal team …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":86411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86412,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86396\/revisions\/86412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}