Wall Street will need a lot of time to warm up to artificial intelligence: A handful of the biggest banks have cracked down on use of the AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are among the biggest brands to ban any use of Microsoft’s ChatGPT for business purposes.
It’s not just an anti-technology stance, however: The banks simply won’t allow the use of third-party software without a thorough vetting, which makes sense when you consider that their entire industry lives and dies on keeping its clients’ money secure.
What the ChatGPT Crackdown Looks Like
Here’s the full list of banks with a ban on ChatGPT use during business communications:
- Bank of America Corp.
- Citigroup Inc.
- Deutsche Bank AG
- Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
- Wells Fargo & Co.
- JPMorgan Chase & Co.
“We are imposing usage limits on ChatGPT, as we continue to evaluate safe and effective ways of using technologies like these,” aWells Fargo spokesperson told Bloomberg.
This view is mirrored in statements from Bank of America, which cites standard procedures required to appraise software before it can be used, while Deutsche Bank does farther and has entirely disabled access to ChatGPT.
What Does This Mean for AI Chat Bots?
AI-powered and mostly text-based chat bots have been making headlines in recent weeks. When they’re not flubbing a fact during a live presentation and tanking Google’s stock by 9%, they’re convincing journalists that they’ve gained sentience.
ChatGPT, created by the Microsoft-owned OpenAI and already integrated with the company’s search engine Bing, is one of the most popular chatbots at the moment. The future for ChatGPT and all the other AI bots — at least as hyped-up by techno-optimists — could impact every industry under the sun. Not only can chatbots reduce many simple but time-consuming tasks, but they could arguably learn to create their own stock portfolios or analyst presentations.
But that requires a certain level of dependability that chatbots have yet to prove they can deliver. Google and Microsoft are currently both working towards reducing “emotional” outbursts from the artificial intelligences.
If ChatGPT and its AI peers can pass muster with the biggest banks Wall Street has to offer, we’ll know that the services have a bright future across many different use cases and industries. But right now, those bots are non persona non grata.
