OpenAI offers $20,000 for finding flaws in its AI system

OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot ChatGPT announced the launch of its Bug Bounty programme that offers rewards of up to $20,000 (Roughly Rs 16.42 lakh) for individuals who report vulnerabilities in the company's artificial intelligence (AI) systems. 

Technology companies often use bug bounty programs to encourage programmers and ethical hackers to report bugs in their software systems. OpenAI Bug Bounty program, which went live on Tuesday, will offer rewards to people based on the severity of the bugs they report, with rewards starting from $200 per vulnerability, it said. 

According to details on bug bounty platform Bugcrowd, OpenAI has invited researchers to review certain functionality of ChatGPT and the framework of how OpenAI systems communicate and share data with third-party applications. However, the programme does not include incorrect or malicious content produced by OpenAI systems. 

"Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”, Open AI said in the post on the platform. It added, “We appreciate the contributions of ethical hackers who help us uphold high privacy and security standards for our users and technology”. 

The move comes days after ChatGPT was banned in Italy for a suspected breach of privacy rules, prompting regulators in other European countries to study generative AI services more closely. 

OpenAI, which released ChatGPT in November last year, is backed by Microsoft that has decided to invest $10 billion in the company. In a matter of days, OpenAI became the fastest platform to gain 1 million active users.  

While the chatbot is proficient at answering complex questions and solving intricate problems, it is also prone to factual inaccuracies. The company believes that the Bug Bounty program is expected to help them ensure the accuracy, reliability, and security of their AI systems. 

Meanwhile, Google has asked its employees to test Bard, its AI chatbot - and a direct competition to ChatGPT – by rewriting answers or providing other forms of feedback. Last month, the company drafted a list of dos and dont’s for fixing Bard’s responses in an email from Prabhakar Raghavana, the senior vice president at Google who oversees Search. This followed a companywide email from CEO Sundar Pichai, who asked employees to spend two to four hours of their time helping improve Bard.