Apple has warned employees to steer clear of OpenAI’s viral chatbot ChatGPT as the company worries that the AI could leak confidential company information while its engineers are rushing to develop an in-house large language model.
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The news comes from The Wall Street Journal, which obtained internal documents from Apple. While the document forbids employees from using ChatGPT, it also prohibits them from using the Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot, an AI code writer. Sources also told the Journal that Apple, like every big player in tech, is interested in building its own large language model. As Insider notes, Apple purchased two AI startups in 2020 for $200 million and $50 million, respectively.
Apple and OpenAI did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment on the ban.
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Apple’s primary fear appears to be a data breach of some kind as employees may opt to use ChatGPT …