Didn’t stop OpenAI rolling out iOS ChatGPT app, just made things a bit awkward
Apple has become the latest company to ban internal use of ChatGPT and similar products, ironically just as the OpenAI chatbot comes to iOS in the form of a mobile app.
News of the move was revealed yesterday by The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed an internal Apple document informing employees of the ban. According to the document, Apple’s concerns fall in line with other corps who’ve also forbid ChatGPT from being used internally, namely that the AI could spill sensitive internal information shared with it.
Apple reportedly barred GitHub’s automated coding tool, Copilot, as well. Rumors have been swirling about Apple’s AI plans for some time, with the company possibly working on its own LLM to rival ChatGPT and Google Bard.
Cupertino is hardly alone in its decision to prohibit the use of the Microsoft-backed chatbot: It joins an ever-growing list of companies like Amazon and a number of banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and the like.
Apple rival Samsung also moved to ban ChatGPT from internal use – twice – due to mishaps. Samsung lifted a ban on employee use of ChatGPT in March, but in less than a month it was revealed by Korean media that Samsung staff had asked ChatGPT for help resolving source code bugs, fixing software used to gather measurement and yield data and turning meeting notes into minutes.
