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OpenAI's ChatGPT Blocked In Italy 69

Italy's privacy watchdog said Friday it had blocked ChatGPT, saying the artificial intelligence app did not respect user data and could not verify users' age. The decision "with immediate effect" will result in "the temporary limitation of the processing of Italian user data vis-a-vis OpenAI," said the Italian Data Protection Authority.
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OpenAI's ChatGPT Blocked In Italy

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  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday March 31, 2023 @07:36AM (#63413690)
    In this case user data is what AI was trained on. So processing of Italian user data is not going to happen, there is no removing data once it is on the Internet or collected by a social media parasites. All that they are going to achieve is that Italians won't be able to interact with ChatGPT without VPN.

    Also, where were these regulators when social media companies were/are intentionally violating user's privacy?
    • by ThePangolino ( 1756190 ) on Friday March 31, 2023 @07:39AM (#63413694)

      Regulators are here just hopping on the hype of the day. Doing something that would be a net positive for the people is too hard for their tiny brains.

      • by Rei ( 128717 )

        No - this is similar to the YouTube COPPA mess in the US. Trying to age-gate the internet without a simple, universally-available real-world-user age verification mechanism in existence is asking for pain.

    • Quote: "Also, where were these regulators when social media companies were/are intentionally violating user's privacy?"

      Why do you think it's called "Meta" and no longer "Facebook"; or "Alphabet" and not "Google"?

      Because investors link EU money punishments to a company name, so they "create" a new one.

      Should EU Law punish the CEOs pockets directly... well, that'd be n utopia.

      • by vadim_t ( 324782 ) on Friday March 31, 2023 @07:54AM (#63413720) Homepage

        Don't be silly.

        The law isn't a computer. This isn't like working around a firewall block by changing your IP address. Do you really think you could get away with a crime by changing your name?

        • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday March 31, 2023 @07:59AM (#63413728) Homepage

          It's really weird how common the notion is that you can evade the law "... With This One Easy Trick!"

          • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

            It's not about evading the law, it's about perception. As the article summary indicates, the ban is not about protecting the voting public but the perception that the state is doing something about it. ChatGPT is useless without the data collected by social media. In order to protect the Italian citizen the government would have to go after the data collectors. Who are the data collectors? The public knows them as Facebook. The investors know them as Meta. The legal entities that operate under those names i

          • by Junta ( 36770 )

            Indeed. For as long as I've been looking at people commenting on tech topics, they get really weird when talking about legal issues and assume stringing together odd technicalities in law will fix any legal trouble because the law is some dumb system that can be trivially outsmarted.

            Nope, the spirit of the law will follow through, unless the prosecution effort *wants* to let someone off the hook. The people famously let off the hook on these sorts of technicalities are generally because the prosecution *wan

            • Because tech people think the law works like code and the system executes it like a CPU.

              The reason they think that is because the legal system gains legitimacy from people thinking this is how it works. I’ll finish by admitting that I have only a vague notion of how the law really works.

          • by sinij ( 911942 )
            Everyday citizens can't generally evade the law, multinational corporations with teams of lawyers and accountants do it all the time.
        • by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
          Ofc not, because changing your name requires you to contact the relevant authority in the country you reside, and they always want additional info like your ssn/bsn ( what ever it's called in the relevant country) and I strongly supect they allso keep a record of your old name just in case.
        • Quote: "Don't be silly. [...] Do you really think you could get away with a crime by changing your name?"

          Calling someone "silly" when you, CLEARLY, didn't READ properly what I wrote is funny.

          Where, PLEASE, ENLIGHTEN ME, did I wrote that "changing company name equals evading LAW"?

          I wrote something OBVIOUS (less to you): the INVESTORS link monetary punishments TO A NAME. Or... would you say that EU punished "Meta" because of selling private data? No... You would say "FACEBOOK" instead. Do you know Meta is the

      • Why do you think it's called "Meta" and no longer "Facebook"; or "Alphabet" and not "Google"?

        Because investors link EU money punishments to a company name, so they "create" a new one.

        That has got to be the dumbest thing ever posted on Slashdot. No a name change doesn't get you out of a fine or a regulation.

    • by anonymous scaredycat ( 7362120 ) on Friday March 31, 2023 @07:52AM (#63413712)

      The questions users ask ChatGPT are also user data. There seems to be significant concerns that the questions will reveal information about users. Some companies are also concerned that it may reveal info about R&D being done by employees who use ChatGPT.
      I would say the same concerns should apply to internet search engines but somehow this seems to have been overlooked.

    • by r1348 ( 2567295 )

      I'm Italian and I can access ChatGPT without problems, not sure how/if the block was implemented, might be the usual half-assed DNS-level block that you can override simply by using a different DNS provider.
      I use Dns0 with DNSoTLS.

    • where were these regulators when social media companies were/are intentionally violating user's privacy?

      1) During those years, the regulators could do little due to lack of framework. What they did was negotiating details of a project of regulation now known as GDPR. Now that it is in place, they can use it. There's margin for interpretation, so Italy went first and others have not moved. Either they will move in some months, or it will not be needed if openAI implements the necessary measures (search inside the training set and request for removal).

      2) The social media company comply, even if reluctantly, or

    • Don't worry, industry lobbyists will calm their fears and clear the way for the user data hoover soon enough.
  • Good! (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 )
    Europe/EU has the right idea ... Americans are too quick to embrace new tech without thinking of the societal (or worse, in the case of AI) consequences. I love how places like Germany and Italy have serious restrictions on surveillance, remain much more "cashy" economies than the US. Progress for the sake of progress is stupid and dangerous. We should look before we leap when machines that replace human creativity are concerned ... it's fine to reject certain technologies as a society. Note the taboos o
    • They're just delaying the inevitable. Because at the end of the day, big business always gets its way.

      • Delaying is sometimes a good thing even if it doesn't result in a permanent ban, since it allows more time to consider safety, psychological, and societal effects. Your viewpoint is very American -- Americans are too blindly optimistic about tech. We need government to ban or delay certain tech that's too risky to deploy.
        • By American standards, I'm a hardcore pinko socialist. So nice try. But I am also a fatalist. I was just stating a fact, not an ideal we should strive for.

          • So you are a European Ultra Conservative?
            However it isn't really Big Business, but the general market forces of Supply and Demand. If people want a product or service really bad, they will get it at any cost. Which will include illegal, black market, and/or dangerous ways.

            I heard that New York State biggest Black Market is selling Unpasteurized Milk. This isn't happening via the Big Dairy companies, but via the Local Farmers who want to make a few more bucks. And being a black market product, there is li

            • You heard wrong. Raw milk is legal for in-state sale in NY State. Farmers just need to be certified and take some safety exams.

              What's wrong with being behind and less aggressive? What has the latest and greatest given the average American, other than bragging rights? Western Europe = longer life expectancy, shorter working hours.

              Is penetration of addictive ad-tech really the means to measure a society by?

    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      "machines" don't replace human creativity, they augment it.

      • "Augment" it away. No consolation to the unemployed and starving.
        • by Junta ( 36770 )

          Note that as we do progress to the point where we no longer require humans to work as hard as we traditionally have needed them to work, then the answer should be how do we fairly allow folks to work less. It's silly to make people do busywork for no particular need just to have a decent standard of living. Everyone should pitch in in meaningful ways as needed for us to have what we want to have and achieve, but if there's a lazier way to get some things done, we need to find a way for society to take adv

    • Progress needs risk. People have died from explosions, poisoning, burns, electrification, radiation... To create a world were we are now overall much safer and protected than in any other point in human history.
      We can and in my opinion regulate known risks with processes and science that we have a firm understanding of. However in AI we are entering a new field where most of the dangers at this point are imagined, and not actually a thing. Jumping to regulate for what could go wrong even though it never

      • Not all progress is beneficial or desirable.
        • Yes, actually it is. It's in the name. "Progress".

          SOME people don't like it? Boo hoo. So sad.

          Or are you one of the morons who thinks cars shouldn't have been able to be made, just to protect the buggy whip makers?

          • by qaz123 ( 2841887 )

            Yes, actually it is. It's in the name. "Progress".

            A disease can also progress.

            • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              Yeah, and its actually a good thing in many ways. Not very good to the person hosting the disease, true. But if a disease didn't progress, it wouldn't be a disease. And since they do progress, guess what, we have studied and learned and progressed science and health to be better because of it. Because of diseases progressing, we fought back and now live longer on average despite them.

              All progress is good, because progress begets more progress.

              • by qaz123 ( 2841887 )
                disease progression can cause your death
                • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                  And failure to understand what you read causes your stupidity.

                  • by qaz123 ( 2841887 )
                    Yes, and it applies to you.
                    • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                      You had almost 24 hours and that was the best you could come up with. Pathetic.

                    • by qaz123 ( 2841887 )
                      I wanted to answer you about the progress and disease progression and so on but what's the point of continuing a discussion with someone who uses insults
                    • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                      You are right that there is no point in continuing, because you already zoomed past the point of understanding the basic premise of this whole conversation. It's like listening to a 5yr old try to confidently make up answers about quantum physics.

                    • by qaz123 ( 2841887 )
                      I understood all what you said in your comments. And you said "Not very good to the person hosting the disease, true". But it's we who are hosting the disease. And it can kill us. We are not observing it from the outside. And there is no healthy person who is observing us from the outside studying the disease learning how to fight it so that other healthy people would not get sick.
                    • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                      You understand only enough to know what the individual words are, not the overall meaning, because you still sound like a 5yr old making up answers about quantum physics.

                    • by qaz123 ( 2841887 )
                      you write gibberish:
                      first: "its actually a good thing in many ways" (that diseases progress).
                      then: "Not very good to the person hosting the disease, true. But if a disease didn't progress, it wouldn't be a disease."
                      as if it's a bad thing if it wouldn't be a disease.
                      And if it didn't progress you needn't to cure it because you wouldn't get sick in the first place
          • We should have fewer cars, more clean, fast electric trains that don't require ecotoxic batteries.
        • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

          False, all progress is beneficial, because progress begets more progress. Even if you (or something) progress in the "wrong" direction, the things learned are beneficial for later even if the overall outcome this particular time is negative. There is nothing to learn if you don't first fail.

          • Some things are best not learned. Some knowledge is best suppressed. Or are you arguing that every piss-ante nation state should have the ability to acquire and produce atomic weapons?
            • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              No.

              There is no such thing as knowledge that should be suppressed. Knowledge and ability are also two completely different and separate things. Having the knowledge doesn't automatically grant you the ability. Having the ability doesn't automatically grant you the knowledge.

              No one should be prevented from learning something. The problems only start when the learning stops.

    • by MBC1977 ( 978793 )

      "Europe/EU has the right idea ... Americans are too quick to embrace new tech without thinking of the societal (or worse, in the case of AI) consequences."

      Kind of a false assumption that across the board the societal consequences are not thought about. Sometimes its about first-mover advantage.

    • If you block stuff on the ground that it doesn't respect users' privacy or doesn't care about applicable local laws on data processing, then Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Akamai, CloudFlare, Amazon and all the others should have been blocked from Italy decades ago.

      This GPT block thing is just for show. The sumbitches trying to cash in on the current AI craze have been at it for a long time.

      • "Cash in?" What's the profit motive here?
        • Tell me: since when does a for-profit develop something out of pure generosity? Do you think Microsoft shelled out billions to make OpenAI their bitch to satisfy a strong urge to better humanity? Do you think Google is scrambling to come up with their own soul-crushing AI solution just to look nicer?

          • Do you think Microsoft shelled out billions to make OpenAI their bitch to satisfy a strong urge to better humanity?

            Yes they did. They did that to earn money, and what leftist morons like you don't get is that you earn money by providing some desirable service (that people will be willing to pay for), i.e. bettering humanity.

        • by znrt ( 2424692 )

          from tfa:

          It said the company had 20 days to respond how it would address the watchdog's concerns, under penalty of a 20-million-euro ($21.7-million) fine, or up to 4 percent of annual revenues.

          also, justifying your post (paid for with public money) with random actions just for show that don't actually contribute any value is a form of profiteering. not saying this is the case here, but it is indeed true that their concern applies exactly the same to traditional online searches which they have had no issue with for decades. what's different?

        • by fazig ( 2909523 )
          Better ad delivery is what I've been reading between the lines for a while now.
          Search engines have been doing this for a while now already, but in a rather hamfisted way. Such trained language models have the potential to do it in a lot more elaborate ways that could be working very similar to viral marketing in the sense of feeling natural, like a friend making a good faith recommendation of a product and or service.

          We'll have to see how that works out, because if M$ can't make enough money with it afte
      • by ogrizzo ( 23524 )
        Sorry to break the news for you, but Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Akamai, CloudFlare, Amazon and all the others have different user agreements in the US and in the EU: they have been regularly been under court scrutiny, and fines are humongous (1.6 billion € just for 2022, 400 million of those to Meta).
        • And of course they got fined record amounts because they abode by the EU regulations to a tee, only got fined once, and I'm 200% sure they haven't reoffended since.

  • ... it will be an uphill battle.
  • Well, it's Italy, they are just afraid ChatGPT will replace a lot of jobs, just like they ban lab-grown meat to protect their farms. It's ridiculous to block progress, as the rest of the world will continue and you'll become the dumbest pupil in the room. In the end you can't block it anyway.
  • It's Italy. Literally no one cares about them. Useless, unenforceable law, by a powerless government.

    "Oh no, our Italian user data!"

    Where did this overinflated inflated self-worth of data come from? I understand keeping personal data personal (so stop giving it away so willingly if you actually care), but unless you're giving ChatGPT actual personal data on purpose, there is nothing to respect. You aren't personally worth that much, nor is whatever you typed into ChatGPT. Not every single thing typed by som

  • Straight from the horse's mouth: "As an AI language model, ChatGPT does not have a physical presence and therefore cannot be "banned" from entering a country like Italy. Additionally, to the best of my knowledge, there is no current or past instance of Italy or any other country banning ChatGPT or any other AI language model. It is important to note that AI language models like ChatGPT can be programmed to generate text in any language, including Italian. However, the use of such models is subject to ethi

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