In a coordinated effort, 13 watchdog groups have written to national consumer, data protection, competition and product safety authorities alerting them to various issues related to generative artificial intelligence.

The transatlantic coalition of consumer groups has also written to US President Joe Biden asking him to take action to protect consumers from potential harm from generative artificial intelligence.

Europe leads the world in the regulation of artificial intelligence, which has become relevant as a new type of artificial intelligence emerges, giving AI chatbots such as ChatGPT the ability to produce text, human-like images, video and audio.

The EU is finalizing the world’s first comprehensive rules for the technology, but they are not expected to come into force for another two years.

The groups called on European and American leaders to use existing laws and introduce new legislation to address the damage caused by generative artificial intelligence.

They cited a Consumer Council report that highlighted the dangers of AI chatbots, including providing incorrect medical information, manipulating people, creating fake news articles, and illegally using large amounts of personal data obtained on the Internet.

Consumer groups from countries including Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece and Denmark are warning that if EU AI law addresses some concerns, it will only enter not in force for a few years, leaving “consumers unprotected against technologies that have not yet been adequately regulated and are rapidly improving”.

Authorities in some countries have already taken action. The Italian data protection authority has ordered the developers of ChatGPT, OpenAI, to temporarily suspend the processing of users’ personal data pending an investigation into a possible data protection breach. France, Spain and Canada are also investigating OpenAI and ChatGPT.