ChatGPT fever spreads to the U.S. workplace, sounding alarm for some in London.
Washington, August 11 (Reuters) - Many workers across the U.S. are turning to chatGPT to help with basic tasks. Reuters Ipsos poll found that despite fears that have led employers such as Microsoft and Google to curb its use, companies worldwide are considering how to best make use of chatGPT, a chatbot program that uses generative AI to hold conversations with users and answer mirrored prompts. Security firms and companies have raised concerns, however, that it could result in intellectual property and strategy leaks. Anecdotal examples of people using chatGPT to help with their day-to-day work include drafting emails, summarizing documents, and doing preliminary research.
Some 28% of respondents to the online poll on artificial intelligence (AI) between July 11 and 17 said they regularly use chatGPT at work, while only 22% said their employers explicitly allowed such external tools. The Reuters Ipsos poll of 2,625 adults across the United States had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about two percentage points. Some 10% of those polled said their bosses explicitly banned external AI tools, while about 25% did not know if their company permitted use of the technology.
ChatGPT became the fastest-growing AI program in history after its launch in November. It has created both excitement and alarm, bringing its developer, OpenAI, into conflict with regulators, particularly in Europe where the company’s mass data collecting has drawn criticism from privacy watchdogs. Human reviewers from other companies may read any of the generated chats, and researchers found that similar AI could reproduce day-to-day information absorbed during training, creating a potential risk for proprietary information. People do not understand how the data is used when they use generative AI services.
Ben King, VP of Customer Trust at corporate security firm OCTA, said, ‘For businesses, this is critical because users don’t have a contract with many AI services because they are a free service, so corporates won’t have run the risk through their usual assessment process.’ OpenAI declined to comment when asked about the implications of individual employees using chatGPT but highlighted a recent company blog post assuring corporate partners that their data would not be used to train the chat part further unless they gave explicit permission.
Some companies, including Google and Coca-Cola, are embracing chatGPT and similar platforms while keeping security in mind. Samsung Electronics banned staff globally from using chatGPT and similar AI tools after discovering an employee had uploaded sensitive code to the platform. Proctor and Gamble employee said, ‘It’s completely banned on the office network. Like, it doesn’t work.’ Cybersecurity experts warn that while the increased capability of chatGPT is beneficial, the information isn’t completely secure and can be engineered out, citing malicious prompts that can be used to get AI chatbots to disclose information. A blanket ban isn’t warranted yet, but caution is advised.
