ChatGPT: legal issues with the world’s latest augmented AI

Recently, you would have heard about ChatGPT. It’s an AI bot trained by OpenAI and capable of generating text in a conversational style.

While you can use the technology for various reasons and in alarmingly disruptive ways, it also presents several legal risks. This post captures the main legal risks.

Intellectual property

One of the main legal risks of ChatGPT is its potential to infringe on intellectual property rights. ChatGPT is trained on a vast amount of text data, including books, articles, and other written materials. If this training data includes copyrighted works, then ChatGPT’s outputs may potentially infringe on the copyrights of those works. This could lead to legal action against you, who may be seen as contributing to the infringement.

Bias and discrimination

Another legal risk of ChatGPT is that it could generate offensive or defamatory content. As a language model, ChatGPT has the ability to generate text that is similar to human conversation. However, it does not have the same ability to understand the context or implications of the words it generates. This means that ChatGPT could potentially generate content that is offensive or defamatory, which could lead to legal action against its users. What’s also unclear is if OpenAI follows a standard like ISO/IEC TR 24027:2021 to prevent bias and discrimination.

Data protection

ChatGPT also has the ability to share personal data—from its training datasets—with its users. This functionality means it probably breaches most of the world’s data protection laws.

Fake news and misleading content

Plus, ChatGPT’s ability to generate conversational text raises concerns about its potential to create fake news or other misleading content. This feature could have serious consequences, such as damaging reputations, spreading misinformation, or even inciting violence. The legal risks associated with the use of ChatGPT for these purposes are unclear, but it’s likely that its users could face legal action if they use the technology for these purposes.

End thought

As organisations like OpenAI continue to develop ChatGPT and other language models and people continue to use them, it will be important to address these legal risks to ensure companies and people use the technology ethically, lawfully, and responsibly.