Following the discovery of misuse of generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Samsung has decided to restrict their use among its employees. The South Korean tech company has confirmed to a leading news agency that it will temporarily limit the use of generative AI on its personal computers.
The decision to restrict the use of this technology was communicated to the employees of one of Samsung’s largest divisions in a memo at the end of April. The company took this step after discovering instances of misuse of the technology.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg released a report claiming that certain employees had uploaded sensitive code onto ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot trained on vast amounts of data to generate responses to user inquiries. ChatGPT falls under the category of generative AI.
Samsung currently lacks its own generative AI product, but other similar services include Google’s Bard. As ChatGPT is developed by American company OpenAI, which is financially backed by Microsoft, some companies may worry about potential leaks of vital information if sensitive data is uploaded onto foreign-owned generative AI platforms.
Samsung has cautioned its employees to exercise caution while using ChatGPT and other products outside of work. The company advised workers not to disclose any personal or company-related information into the services. This comes in light of a Samsung company-wide survey conducted last month which revealed that 65% of the respondents were concerned about security risks when using generative AI services.
Samsung is not alone in restricting the use of this technology, as other companies are also following suit. JPMorgan, a U.S. investment bank, reportedly limited the use of ChatGPT among its staff earlier this year. Additionally, Amazon warned employees not to upload any confidential information, such as code, to ChatGPT.
Businesses are exploring the potential applications of generative AI capabilities in their operations. One example is ChatGPT, which can assist engineers in rapidly generating computer code, thereby accelerating their work processes. At Goldman Sachs, software developers have already leveraged generative AI to facilitate code generation.
Despite recent limitations, Samsung is actively exploring ways to safely harness the power of generative AI to enhance employee productivity and efficiency.