European Union regulators have initiated an inquiry into Google's artificial intelligence model, Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM2), due to concerns regarding its compliance with the bloc's stringent data privacy regulations. The investigation, led by Ireland's Data Protection Commission, is part of a broader effort by national watchdogs across the 27-nation bloc to evaluate how AI systems manage personal data.
Google's European headquarters in Dublin place the Irish watchdog as the company's primary regulator for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within the EU. The commission's inquiry focuses on determining whether Google has adequately assessed whether PaLM2's data processing poses a potential 'high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals' in the EU.
PaLM2, a large language model utilized by Google, serves as a foundational element for various generative AI services, such as email summarization. Despite requests for comment, Google has not responded to the inquiry.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk's social media platform X agreed to permanently cease processing user data for its AI chatbot Grok following legal action by the Irish watchdog. Similarly, Meta Platforms halted its plans to utilize content from European users to train its latest large language model version after discussions with Irish regulators.
Last year, Italy's data privacy regulator imposed a temporary ban on ChatGPT due to data privacy breaches, demanding that the chatbot's creator, OpenAI, address specific concerns to resolve the issue.
