The restriction comes only days after the House presented legislation to establish a government artificial intelligence panel. The United States House of Representatives has passed new regulations prohibiting members from using artificial intelligence (AI) big language models, with the exception of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus service.
Chatbot has been banned for security reasons, according to a notification delivered by the U.S. House’s chief administrative officer, Catherine Szpindor: “House offices using the ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot are only authorized to use the ChatGPT Plus version of the product.” The Plus edition of the program includes critical privacy measures required to secure House data.”
According to the document, “no other versions of ChatGPT or other large language models Al software are currently authorized for use in the House.” The paper also includes rules limiting House members’ use of the software to “research and evaluation only” and prohibiting them from incorporating ChatGPT into their “regular workflow.”
Other constraints include not revealing any personal info as prompted and using ChatGPT Plus with all privacy options enabled. It’s unclear what privacy features are referred to in the letter, as OpenAI hasn’t highlighted any privacy-related perks limited to the Plus subscription. The ChatGPT Plus service from OpenAI allows broad access to the model at peak hours, quicker question replies, and priority access to new features.
Back in April, the firm offered the ability for ChatGPT and ChatGPT Plus customers to erase their chat history and accounts, although anything purged in this manner stays on the ChatGPT servers for an extra 30 days. The new House rules, once implemented, will only apply to House members, but U.S. Reps. Ted Lieu, Ken Buck, and Anna Eshoo recently introduced a bipartisan bill that would create a federal artificial intelligence commission with the mission of providing regulatory oversight to the U.S. AI industry as a whole.
