Malta’s IT Law Association (MITLA) has released a position paper highlighting the need for better policy orientation around emerging technologies.

The paper calls for urgent action to address issues such as misinformation, education, and legal responsibilities.

“OpenAI’s ChatGPT has introduced AI to the masses and can be very useful as a tool to assist people in written tasks.

"While there are dangers associated with AI even in terms of job displacement, there is also a reality that AI developments will create new jobs that today cannot even be imagined. ChatGPT could also make up for certain skills shortages and make people and organisations produce higher quality work faster and at lower costs," the association said in its paper.

MITLA however warns that although OpenAI began as a non-profit organisation, it is now a for-profit entity, “creating concerns that the company may ignore wider ethical implications in a race for profits”. 

MITLA’s recommendations include:

•    The need to regulate emerging technologies to minimise biases inherent in the datasets that feed them, as well as to prevent the abuse of machine learning to the point that tools like ChatGPT can be sabotaged or manipulated to give false, inaccurate or dangerous information.

•    The need to analyse the education system to ensure that students are being equipped with the necessary tools to adapt to emerging technologies. Unless education is focused on training people to adapt to new skills and technologies, they will be left out of the job market of the future.

•    The need for educators to be assisted to adapt to technologies like ChatGPT which may radically change the way homework and exams must be deployed.

•    The need for legal changes to map out the responsibilities and liabilities of AI companies, to ensure that they are either held accountable for the repercussions of misleading information or that they give adequate warning to users.