You may have heard about the explosive growth of AI bots over the last year. They are now doing everything from answering customer questions to writing news stories. Now Walmart has warned employees not to use popular AI bots like ChatGPT over privacy concerns.
This comes from a leaked memo to employees telling them not to enter confidential information into ChatGPT. Employees have also been told not to share any customer information with AI bots. The fear is they don’t know where that information will end up or how the AIs may use that information.
Walmart is not against the use of AI and has even been working to build AI into its stories. Using cameras powered by AI to manage everything from stock levels to making sure there are enough carts for customers.
The problem for ChatGPT and other 3rd party AIs is the fear that these AIs would leak private company information or customer personal information.
In the memo, Walmart tells employees that they “should not input any information about Walmart’s business — including business process, policy, or strategy — into these tools.”
The memo went on to say, “putting Walmart information into these tools risks exposure of the company’s information, may breach confidentiality, and may significantly impact our rights in any code, product, information, or content. Every associate is responsible for the appropriate use and protection of Walmart data.”
Walmart is not alone in these warnings, as Microsoft and Amazon also have issue warnings about what information you can share with AIs.