China’s Central Bank Warns Against ChatGPT ‘Data Leaks’

China’s state-sponsored payments association is warning against the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

The Payment & Clearing Association of China on Monday (April 10) said that technology like OpenAI’s ChatGPT could pose “risks such as cross-border data leaks,” Reuters reported.

“Payment industry staff must comply with laws and rules when using tools such as ChatGPT, and should not upload confidential information related to the country and the finance industry,” said the association, an arm of the People’s Bank of China.

The warning comes as AI tools find themselves at the center of a global battle, with President Joe Biden meeting with a council of science and technology advisers last week to discuss the risks and opportunities that AI could pose for both individual users and national security.

“The speed at which AI is radically transforming global economies has regulators scrambling to keep up and contain it,” PYMNTS wrote April 4.

“As ChatGPT’s popularity has exploded, global concerns have been mounting about the AI industry’s lack of regulation, and lawmaker scrutiny around AI technology has increasingly shone a spotlight on an emerging regulation-innovation tug of war.”

Italy recently became the first Western nation to ban Microsoft-backed OpenAI ChatGPT-4 chatbot after the country’s Data Protection Authority announced an investigation into the AI solution’s alleged breach of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy rules and age-verification practices.

The Italian regulator argued that there was “an absence of any legal basis” to allow the massive data collection and storage of personal information needed to “train” the GPT-4 chatbot, and issued a temporary ban on its use in the country.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit Center for AI and Digital Policy has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking it to investigate OpenAI and suspend its development of large language models for commercial purposes.

“The Federal Trade Commission has declared that the use of AI should be ‘transparent, explainable, fair, and empirically sound while fostering accountability.’ OpenAI’s product GPT-4 satisfies none of these requirements,” the complaint says. “It is time for the FTC to act.”

PYMNTS wrote last week that such a ban would be antithetical to innovation and could possibly backfire.

“So what would happen if legitimate researchers and their investors really did pause AI development?” the report asked. “The most likely scenario is one where illegitimate researchers and profit-chasing companies fill the gap and advance AI’s velocity for their own gain, with few guardrails around data set integrity.”