Apple employees banned from using ChatGPT
On the same day Apple launched the first official ChatGPT app on its iOS App Store, the company told employees they're not allowed to use the AI chatbot over fears of security leaks.
Sources say Apple Inc. has restricted the use of ChatGPT for all employees of the California based tech giant.
This includes any other ChatGPT copycats or external AI programs that have hit the market since the Microsoft-backed OpenAI unleashed its prodigy chatbot last November.
Apple – currently developing its own artificial intelligence technology to compete with ChatGPT – is concerned that employees may accidentally (or purposefully) leak sensitive intellectual data through the AI tools.
The company also restricted Apple employees from using the Microsoft-owned GitHub's Copilot to automate software code writing, according to an internal report first seen by the Wall Street Journal Thursday.
There has been increased scrutiny among privacy groups over how ChatGPT stores and processes its user chat history and data.
Last month, Samsung employees in South Korea were reported to have inadvertently leaked sensitive company data on three separate occasions while interacting with ChatGPT.
The confidential data was said to include Samsung’s proprietary source code belonging to the company’s analytics semiconductor software.
The leak came barely two weeks after Samsung decided to reverse a ban on ChatGPT, originally put in place to avoid confidential leaks in the first place.
The South Korean-based Samsung employees revealed restricted data and an excerpt from a corporate meeting.
The leak prompted Samsung to ban the employee use of all AI generative platforms moving forward.
OpenAI has been slammed for collecting massive amounts of data and using it to train the AI large language model without the explicit permission of the user.
The company responded by integrating more transparent privacy policies into ChatGPT in April, including an "incognito mode," allowing users to opt out of having their data used to improve the AI chatbot.
The Apple and OpenAI collaborative ChatGPT app release for iOS claims it will give users the same functionality as ChatGPT’s desktop version.
It’s uncertain if the app will also provide users with an incognito mode option.
Apple, OpenAI, and Microsoft have not commenced on the report.
