DATA COLLECTION USED TO TRAIN CHATGPT IS PROBLEMATIC
The data collection used to train ChatGPT is problematic for several reasons.
First, none of us were asked whether OpenAI could use our data. This is a clear violation of privacy, especially when data is sensitive and can be used to identify us, our family members or our location.
Even when data is publicly available, its use can breach what we call textual integrity. This is a fundamental principle in legal discussions of privacy. It requires that individuals’ information is not revealed outside of the context in which it was originally produced.
Also, OpenAI offers no procedures for individuals to check whether the company stores their personal information, or to request it be deleted. This is a guaranteed right in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – although it’s still under debate whether ChatGPT is compliant with GDPR requirements.
This “right to be forgotten” is particularly important in cases where the information is inaccurate or misleading, which seems to be a regular occurrence with ChatGPT.
Moreover, the scraped data ChatGPT was trained on can be proprietary or copyrighted. For instance, when I prompted it, the tool produced the first few paragraphs of Peter Carey’s novel True History Of The Kelly Gang – a copyrighted text.
Finally, OpenAI did not pay for the data it scraped from the Internet. The individuals, website owners and companies that produced it were not compensated. This is particularly noteworthy considering OpenAI was recently valued at US$29 billion, more than double its value in 2021.
