ChatGPT under FTC investigation for publishing false info

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial-intelligence system has harmed individuals by publishing false information about them, according to a letter the agency sent to the company.

- Ryan Tracy

The letter, reported earlier by The Washington Post and confirmed by a person familiar with the matter, also asked detailed questions about the company's data-security practices, citing a 2020 incident in which the company disclosed a bug that allowed users to see information about other users' chats and some payment-related information.

A representative of OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FTC probe represents a potential legal threat for the app, which gained wide popularity after it was released late last year for its ability to generate humanlike outputs of text in response to prompts.

The FTC letter, known as a civil investigative demand, poses dozens of questions. Other topics covered include the company's marketing efforts, its practices for training Al models, and its handling of users' personal information.