OpenAI’s ChatGPT receives complaint from FTC as tech leaders layoff ethical AI teams

Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Howley explains how FTC regulators have filed a complaint against OpenAI, citing GPT-4 as a "risk," while tech companies continue to lay off members of its artificial intelligence ethics teams.

Video transcript

- OpenAI is facing a new complaint filed with the FTC today over the company's popular ChatGPT product. Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley here with the details. Dan, what are we learning?

DAN HOWLEY: That's right, Dave. This is from the Center for AI and Digital Policy. And they're basically calling for the FTC to force OpenAI to stop what it's doing as far as advancing its practices on Chat-- I'm sorry-- GPT-4. Now, one of the statements that they say in the complaint is OpenAI as California-based corporation has released a product GPT-4 for the consumer market that is biased, deceptive, and a risk to privacy and public safety.

They also go on to say in the complaint-- let me just pull it up here. Let's see. Here we go. Sorry about that. The Federal Trade Commission has declared that the use of AI should be transparent, expendable, fair, and empirically sound while fostering accountability. They say that OpenAI's product GPT-4 satisfies none of those requirements and is calling on the FTC to act here and enjoin them from further commercial releases of GPT-4 and the establishment of guardrails to protect consumers, businesses, and the commercial marketplace from AI.

So, basically, the fear here is something that we saw in that letter that was signed from researchers the other day about the rapid advancement of AI technologies like GPT-4, GPT-3, 3.5, ChatGPT, and other generative AI's. Don't forget this isn't just OpenAI that's doing this. We have other companies that are also in the generative AI space. And it comes shortly after that big kerfuffle around the generative AI image of the pope walking around and then those other generative AI images of Trump and Macron being arrested. So this is something that we're going to continue to see, these kind of backlashes to different parts of generative AI.

- And, Dan, some of these concerns are being brought to light at a time when a number of these tech companies that are in the AI that have AI as part of their businesses are cutting some of those positions within the company. What can you tell us about that?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. Look, I mean, when I was at the Microsoft event for them rolling out Bing and the Edge browser, they had a panel specifically dedicated to AI ethics. And they trumpeted that heavily. And then shortly thereafter, they let go of that team. And now I'm sure Microsoft would say, look, we invested in this. We have these guardrails set up. We know what we're doing. But it's not just Microsoft. We had Twitch, we had Twitter, other companies laying off these ethical teams.

And, no, this is not Skynet. We don't have terminators running around. Self-driving cars aren't plowing into people like that Stephen King movie. I forget what it was. I want to say "Christine," but that doesn't sound right. But there is a fear that these kinds of technologies could be abused. And part of that is the spread of disinformation, misinformation. People may rely on them. And a lot of the companies that put out these technologies specifically have to say, look, they're not always going to be correct. Microsoft does that when they release a new product. Google will put that on as a warning on its Bard products. So there's this kind of fear that, yes, these are advancing, yes, it's incredible technology, but is it ready for primetime yet? And, clearly, this organization does not see that as the case.

- All right. Dan Howley, appreciate that. Thanks so much.