ChatGPT will have to comply with tougher safety rules after the EU added it Monday to a list of digital services subject to greater legal scrutiny, a first for an AI chatbot.
The three now have four months to comply with additional obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a content law that is a major weapon in the legal armoury the EU has deployed to rein in Big Tech in recent years.
It recently told TikTok, one of the about 30 other listed platforms, to change what it deemed its addictive design or face heavy fines. And last year it hit Elon Musk’s social media platform X with a 120-million-euro ($138 million) fine for breaching transparency obligations and other violations. (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
To bring it under the DSA’s regulatory umbrella, the commission qualified ChatGPT as a search engine. The designations come as the EU has stepped up regulatory enforcement against the world’s biggest digital platforms, including many American ones, despite strong US pushback and threats of retaliation.
These include “assessing and mitigating the systemic risks stemming from their service and algorithmic systems related to the dissemination of illegal content, the negative effects on minors, users’ physical and mental well-being, fundamental rights, electoral processes and public security,” Brussels said. Lena-Maria Boswald, of the German tech think tank Interface, said ahead of the announcement that the expected move would set a “precedent” and “influence the regulatory expectations for every large generative AI system used in the EU”. “OpenAI already has risk-management obligations under the AI Act, but the DSA could widen the scope,” she said.
