Microsoft partner OpenAI reportedly under FTC investigation

The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly investigating OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed startup that makes the smash hit ChatGPT.

The FTC probe is focused on the risk to consumers’ reputations and privacy that ChatGPT could pose, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before the Senate earlier this year, he actually invited regulatory scrutiny of products like ChatGPT.

“We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” he said.

Altman’s wish appears to be coming true.

The FTC is building a reputation as Big Tech’s big enforcer, under Chair Lina Khan. She has long advocated for using existing laws to rein in the tech industry.

Until recently, Microsoft had largely escaped the "tech-lash" that peers like Meta and Amazon have faced. But that appears to be changing.

In addition to the OpenAI probe, the FTC continues to fight Microsoft’s plan to buy gaming giant Activision Blizzard in the courts.

Microsoft bet big on ChatGPT by using the technology to power its new Bing search engine. University of Washington AI expert Emily Bender said that’s a big problem.

“They have basically embedded a random text generator into their search engine,” Bender told KUOW in May. “That's when you take ChatGPT and you put it inside of Bing. You're taking a space where people go to get information, and feeding them synthetic text instead. That seems like it would not be reliable, and therefore not safe.”

Microsoft declined to comment on the investigation.