Apple has restricted use of ChatGPT and other external artificial intelligence tools as it develops its own similar technology, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the matter.
Apple is concerned workers who use these types of programs could release confidential data, according to the document. Apple also told its employees not to use Microsoft-owned GitHub's Copilot, which automates the writing of software code, the document said.
ChatGPT, created by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, is a chatbot derived from a so-called large language model that is able to answer questions, write essays and perform other tasks in human-like ways.
When people use these models, data is sent back to the developer to enable continued improvements, presenting the potential for an organization to unintentionally share proprietary or confidential information. OpenAI disclosed in March that it took ChatGPT temporarily offline because a bug allowed some users to see the titles from a user's chat history.
An OpenAI spokeswoman pointed to an announcement last month where the company introduced the ability for users to turn off their chat history, which the company said would block the ability to train the AI model on that data.
Apple is known for its rigorous security measures to guard information about future products and consumer data. A number of organizations have also grown wary of the technology as its workers have begun using it for everything from writing emails and marketing material to coding software.
JPMorgan Chase and Verizon have barred use. David Banks, the chancellor of New York City's schools, said in an op-ed published on Thursday that it rescinded its ChatGPT ban.
Amazon.com has urged its engineers who want to use ChatGPT for coding assistance to use its own internal AI tool, a spokeswoman recently told the Journal. Apple is also working on its own large language models, people familiar with the matter said.
Apple's AI efforts are being led by John Giannandrea, whom Apple hired from Google in 2018. Under Mr. Giannandrea, a senior vice president at Apple reporting to Chief Executive Tim Cook, Apple has acquired a number of artificial intelligence startups.
In Apple's most recent quarterly earnings call with analysts, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook expressed some concerns about advancements in this area also known as generative artificial intelligence.
"I do think it's very important to be deliberate and thoughtful in how you approach these things," Mr. Cook said. "And there's a number of issues that need to be sorted as is being talked about in a number of different places, but the potential is certainly very interesting."
Apple has also recently paid close attention to new software coming onto its iPhone App Store that takes advantage of generative artificial intelligence. When app developer Blix tried to update its email app BlueMail with a ChatGPT feature, Apple temporarily blocked the update on grounds that it could potentially show inappropriate content to children.
Apple's review team asked the developer to either move up the app's age restriction to 17 and older -- it was set at 4 and older -- or include content filtering. Once Blix assured Apple that it already had implemented content filtering on the ChatGPT feature, the app was approved.
On Thursday, OpenAI announced a ChatGPT app for the iPhone and iPad.
Apple was an early entrant into the consumer application of artificial intelligence when it launched the Siri voice assistant in 2011. But the company fell behind the likes of Amazon's Alexa in subsequent years.