Shocking reason ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode could be illegal in several countries
ChatGPT has been making headlines ever since it was first released in 2022.
Since then, people have been using the AI chatbot to do everything from writing college essays to scamming McDonald's into giving them free food.
Its latest update - which includes Advanced Voice mode - is set to be rolled out within the next week.
While standard voice conversations with ChatGPT transcribe what you say into text and send it to their models to generate a response, advanced voice will feel a lot more natural.
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The new feature will use GPT-4o's native audio capabilities to create real-time conversations that pick up on non-verbal cues - such as how fast you're talking - and generate appropriate emotional responses.
It will also be able to interpret visual inputs. For example, you could ask it to look at something with your smartphone’s camera and give an opinion.
Advanced Voice mode will be available to ChatGPT Plus and Teams subscribers, but the official launch isn't set to happen in the EU. And there's a good reason why.
A post on X (formerly Twitter) by parent company OpenAI simply states: "Advanced Voice is not yet available in the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein."
In response, an X user points out a section of the EU AI Act that restricts 'the placing on the market, the putting into service for this specific purpose, or the use of AI systems to infer emotions of a natural person.'
As ChatGPT can recognize emotions in the user's voice, this would make it illegal in workplaces and schools across the EU.
Alongside a screenshot of the legislation, Dean W. Ball wrote: "Under a strict reading of the AI Act, ChatGPT advanced voice is *illegal* in EU workplaces and schools because the system can recognize a user’s emotions. That’s prohibited by the AI Act."
For those not affected by the legislation, the rollout of Advanced Voice mode will be gradual and is expected to be finished by the end of next week.
Since another recent upgrade to the chatbot, some users have reported it reaching out and initializing conversations without being prompted.
In a post shared to Reddit's r/ChatGPT thread, one user shared a screenshot in which the chatbot can be seen asking them about their first week at high school.
The Redditor then asks: "Did you just message me first?"
"Yes I did," the bot responds. "I just wanted to check in and see how things went with your first week of high school. If you'd rather initiate the conversation yourself, just let me know!"
While OpenAI is yet to confirm whether the eerie development is intentional, given the sophistication required to start the new conversation using past shared information, it's highly likely that these users have been drafted into some form of testing of a new feature.
If this is the case, it could be an absolute game changer for AI chatbots.