Amid facing bans on ChatGPT across European countries, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman said that he is considering expanding services by opening an office in Japan. He recently met Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida where they spoke about the merits and the risks of privacy and security of the technology, as told by Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief cabinet secretary, according to reports by Reuters.

Matsuno said that Japan is currently evaluating the possibilities of introducing OpenAI’s technology in the country, said Matsuno.

After meeting with Kishida, Altman told reporters, “We hope to … build something great for Japanese people, make the models better for Japanese language and Japanese culture.” This is one of the first stops of Altman’s world tour after the launch of ChatGPT.

Furthermore, Taro Kono, who is responsible for Japan’s digital transformation in the cabinet, expressed optimism that AI technologies would play a significant role in the government’s workstyle reforms. However, he acknowledged that introducing ChatGPT into public offices would be challenging in the near future due to issues such as the potential for the technology to produce false information.

ChatGPT vs the World

Last month, ChatGPT faced a temporary suspension in Italy because it failed to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which includes the “right to be forgotten.” Unfortunately, there is currently no method for people to request the deletion of their data from a machine learning system once it has been employed to train a model. For this OpenAI is likely to reach an agreement with the Italian government soon as Altman has promised.

Moreover, in Australia, Mayor of Hepburn Shire, Brian Wood said that he might sue OpenAI for the erroneous statements ChatGPT made about him serving prison term for bribery. 

In addition to that, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) is also investigating OpenAI for a complaint alleging the collection and use of personal information of users without consent. China, Russia, and North Korea have also banned ChatGPT.

Recently, the Indian government acknowledged ethical issues associated with AI, such as bias and privacy, and has taken steps to establish a robust regulatory framework. However, they have not yet proposed any legislation.

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU), is bringing in the much-anticipated AI Act this year. In the US too, the government released a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. 

Amid all this, OpenAI released its own version of AI Safety and regulations, which spoke about increasing factual accuracy and addressing privacy concerns. The paper also read that the company will delete users’ data on request and also only use the provided data “wherever feasible”. The company version of AI safety seems more fluff than real.