Germany is considering joining Italy and banning AI bot chatGPT due to concerns over data use concerns.
In an interview with Handelsblatt, Ulrich Kelber said Germany might follow Italy's recent lead and ban ChatGPT over breach of privacy fears.
"In principle, such action is also possible in Germany," Kelber said, though he added any action would be at a German Federal state level.
Italy banned the AI bot after an investigation into access to data with other EU countries including France and Ireland also reported to have asked for the findings alongside Germany
A spokesperson for Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) told Reuters: "We are following up with the Italian regulator to understand the basis for their action and we will coordinate with all EU data protection authorities in relation to this matter."
How an EU ban might work is problematic as OpenAI operates and has no offices in the EU.
Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy after the national data agency temporarily banned the chatbot.
Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, however, said putting a pause on development will have little effect on AI's future development.
In an interview with Reuters, Gates said that it would be better to focus on how best to use the developments in AI, as it was hard to understand how a pause could work globally.
Gates was responding to an open letter signed by Tesla boss Elon Musk and hundreds of computer experts urging a halt to development on systems any more advanced than GPT-4, the recently upgraded new version of the bot that can hold conversations and compose songs.
In the letter, the experts said a pause was needed to assess the potential risks and benefits to society.
“I don’t think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges,” Gates said to Reuters.
“Clearly there’s huge benefits to these things… what we need to do is identify the tricky areas.”
“I don’t really understand who they’re saying could stop, and would every country in the world agree to stop, and why to stop,” he said.
“But there are a lot of different opinions in this area.”