Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at the OpenAI DevDay event on November 6, 2023 in San Francisco, California. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave the keynote at his first-ever Open AI DevDay conference.
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Microsoft is investing billions of dollars in OpenAI. But for a brief period on Thursday, employees at the software company were not allowed to use ChatGPT, the company’s most famous product, CNBC learned.
“Security and data concerns have prevented our employees from using many AI tools,” Microsoft said in an update to its internal website. CNBC also saw screenshots showing ChatGPT not being accessible on corporate devices.
Representatives for Microsoft and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.
“While it is true that Microsoft has invested in OpenAI and ChatGPT has built-in safeguards to prevent unauthorized use, this website is still a third-party external service,” Microsoft said. “This means it should be used with caution due to privacy and security risks. This also applies to other external AI services such as Midjourney and Replika.”
The company initially announced it would ban ChatGPT and design software Canva, but later removed the text of the advisory that included those products. After this article was originally published, Microsoft restored access to ChatGPT.
Many large companies restrict the use of ChatGPT to prevent the sharing of sensitive data. ChatGPT, trained on extensive internet data, creates human-like responses to people’s chat messages. The number of users of this service exceeds his 100 million.
Microsoft’s update recommends using its own Bing Chat tool, which relies on OpenAI artificial intelligence models. The two companies have a close relationship. Microsoft has been busy this year releasing updates to its Windows operating system and Office applications that utilize OpenAI services, which run on Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure.
Earlier this week, CEO Satya Nadella appeared on stage with OpenAI’s Sam Altman at the startup’s first developer conference.
Altman writes: post “Rumors that we are blocking Microsoft 365 in retaliation are completely unfounded,” X said late Thursday.
In January, a high-ranking Microsoft engineer wrote on a forum that employees could use ChatGPT but advised them not to enter sensitive information. insider report.
Earlier this week, a hacker group called Anonymous Sudan Announced targeting ChatGPT Altman was targeted for “OpenAI’s cooperation with the occupied country of Israel,” and for stating that he was “willing to further invest in Israel.”
clock: OpenAI on track for 2023 revenue of $1.3 billion, up 4543% year over year