A UK competition watchdog is set to review the artificial intelligence (AI) market to make sure consumers are protected, BBC reported. The investigation will look at the software behind chatbots like ChatGPT.
The industry is facing scrutiny over the pace at which it is developing technology to mimic human behavior.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will explore whether AI’s benefits are only available for the companies that can afford the technology.
Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), said so-called foundation models such as the software behind ChatGPT had the potential to “transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth.”
But she said it was crucial that the potential benefits were “readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information.” The move comes amidst warnings about the growing dangers from developments in the field, which enables technology to create images or text that are barely distinguishable from the work of humans.
Some have warned that tools such as ChatGPT - which can write essays, do computer coding and even have conversations in a human-like way - could end up displacing hundreds of millions of jobs.
Earlier this week, Geoffrey Hinton - a man widely seen as the godfather of artificial intelligence - quit his job at Google and warned about the growing dangers from developments in the field.
Hinton told BBC that some of the dangers of AI chatbots were “quite scary”, and that they could soon overtake the level of information that a human brain holds.
“Right now, they're not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be,” he added. In March, key figures in artificial intelligence called for powerful AI systems to be halted for at least six months amid concerns about the threats they posed.
Twitter chief Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak were among those to sign an open letter warning of the risks, and say the race to develop AI systems is out of control.
