OpenAI Sued by Government for Using Stolen Personal Data to Train ChatGPT

ChatGPT (Photo: Doc. Pixel)

JAKARTA - OpenAI is accused of stealing the personal data of hundreds of millions of internet users to train its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based chatbot, ChatGPT. The allegations were filed in a class action lawsuit by Clarkson Law Firm.

In his complaint filed in the District of Northern California, United States (US) recently, Clarkson stated that ChatGPT and DALL-E could operate using stolen personal information.

The data comes from hundreds of millions of internet users, including children of all ages, without their consent or knowledge.

"Using stolen and misused personal information on a large scale, (OpenAI has) created powerful and highly profitable AI and released it to the world without regard to risk," Clarkson said in the lawsuit.

Indeed, it's no secret that OpenAI trains its large language model by gathering 300 billion words from the internet, including articles, blogs, Wikipedia posts, and posts from social media sites like Twitter and Reddit.

However, Clarkson regretted that OpenAI did this in secret, and without registering as a data broker as required under applicable law, as quoted from Mashable, Saturday, July 1.

With this, Clarkson added that OpenAI and its partner Microsoft can of course reap huge profits from this.

"Every new user and dollar earned represents another victim who was harmed financially by the commercial misuse of their personal information," said Clarkson.

Finally, the lawsuit also demands the US district court force OpenAI to temporarily stop offering ChatGPT until it can apply various safeguards.

For example, setting up an independent AI board that will determine how OpenAI products will be used in the future. In fact, the company is also required to pay compensation for scraping people's data without their consent.

"We can't afford the cost of negative outcomes with AI as we have done with social media, or as we did with nukes. As a society, the price we have to pay is too high," Clarkson said.