Samsung Bans Staff’s AI Use After Spotting ChatGPT Data Leak

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Samsung Electronics Co. is banning employee use of popular generative AI tools like ChatGPT after discovering staff uploaded sensitive code to the platform, dealing a setback to the spread of such technology in the workplace.

The Suwon, South Korea-based company notified staff at one of its biggest divisions on Monday about the new policy via a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News. The company is concerned that data transmitted to such artificial intelligence platforms including Google Bard and Bing is stored on external servers, making it difficult to retrieve and delete, and could end up being disclosed to other users, according to the document.

The company conducted a survey last month about the use of AI tools internally and said that 65% of respondents believe that such services pose a security risk. Earlier in April, Samsung engineers accidentally leaked internal source code by uploading it to ChatGPT, according to the memo. It's unclear what the information encompassed, and a Samsung representative declined to comment.

“Interest in generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT has been growing internally and externally,” Samsung told staff. “While this interest focuses on the usefulness and efficiency of these platforms, there are also growing concerns about security risks presented by generative AI.”

Samsung is just the latest big company to express concern about the technology. In February, only a couple of months after OpenAI's chatbot service stirred up a storm of interest in the technology, some Wall Street banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. either banned or restricted its use. Italy also barred the use of ChatGPT over privacy fears, though it reversed its stance in recent days.

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