ChatGPT Just Got Banned In Parts Of Europe, Isn't It Supposed To Be A Gold Rush?

In a groundbreaking move, Italy on Friday became the first Western country to ban the advanced chatbot ChatGPT, raising concerns about privacy issues related to the model.

Created by U.S.-based start-up OpenAI and backed by Microsoft Corporation MSFT, the tech has been used by millions of people since its November 2022 launch.

For the uninitiated, ChatGPT is capable of mimicking human language and writing styles, and has been hailed as the next greatest invention since the internet.

However, Italy's data protection authority is pumping the brakes on OpenAI and launching an investigation, citing worries about potential data breaches, age verification, and unsuitable content.

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Italy isn’t the first country to ban the emerging tech — it's not available in China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

In a separate AI development, Bloomberg announced the creation of a new large-scale generative AI model specifically trained to support natural language processing (NLP) tasks within the financial industry.

BloombergGPT, as Bloomberg is calling it, is being touted as a game-changer in the sector, improving existing financial NLP tasks like sentiment analysis, named entity recognition, news classification, and question answering.

More than that, BloombergGPT will use AI to help customers make better investment decisions, leveraging data available on its Bloomberg Terminal.

Meanwhile, HubSpot Inc HUBS CEO Dharmesh Shah, is going all-in on AI by purchasing the domain name Chat.com for a whopping eight-figure sum, using his own personal funds.

Shah has moved his ChatSpot.ai website to the Chat-GPT4 model, citing the rising importance of chat-based UX as the next big thing in software.

With generative AI making natural language interfaces more intuitive, Shah said in a LinkedIn post that Chat.com's simplicity, shortness, and relevance will immediately create user trust, allowing someone to build a successful product or company on the platform.

Shah's acquisition underscores the increasing importance of chatbots in modern digital interactions and raises the question of who will emerge as the next ChatGPT in the quickly evolving field.

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