Apple crackdown on ChatGPT apps unlikely, but it could impose new rules down the road

Large connection models similar ChatGPT tin nutrient full blocks of substance that work similar a quality wrote them. Companies are racing to integrate ChatGPT into their apps, including Microsoft, Snap, and Shopify. But the inclination could beryllium stalled if Apple decides to restrict ChatGPT-based apps from its App Store, which is the lone mode to instal bundle connected an iPhone.

Blix, an email app shaper that has regularly clashed with Apple implicit its App Store rules, says it ran into that hurdle this week.

Co-founder Ben Volach told the Wall Street Journal that Apple rejected an update to its BlueMail app due to the fact that it integrated ChatGPT to assistance constitute emails, and it didn't see contented filtering implicit the output of the chatbot. Volach has besides claimed connected Twitter that Apple is "blocking" an AI update.

Apple said that without contented filtering, the Blue Mail chatbot could nutrient words that aren't due for children, and the email app would person to rise its recommended property to 17 and up, according to the report.

Apple is investigating and the developers tin entreaty the decision, a spokesperson told CNBC.

Regardless, the Blue Mail occurrence isn't a motion of an impending Apple crackdown connected AI apps.

In fact, ChatGPT-powered features are already successful Snapchat and the Microsoft Bing app, which are presently being distributed done the App Store. Other AI apps, such arsenic Lensa, person besides been distributed and person flourished successful the App Store.

There is nary ceremonial AI oregon chatbot argumentation successful Apple's App Store Guidelines, a papers that outlines what Apple permits connected the App Store. Apple has employees successful a section called App Review load up and concisely usage each apps and updates earlier it approves them.

Apple could adhd AI-specific guidelines successful the future. For crypto apps, for example, Apple explicitly introduced a conception astir cryptocurrency successful the guidelines allowing wallet apps and banning on-device mining successful a 2018 update. Apple introduced new rules astir NFTs past year. The institution often releases updates to its guidelines successful June and October.

But the Blue Mail occurrence does bespeak that Apple's App Store is strict astir contented that's generated astatine monolithic standard -- either by users (in the lawsuit of societal media apps, for example), or, much recently, by AI.

If an app tin show contented that infringes intelligence property, oregon messages that magnitude to cyberbullying, for example, past the app indispensable person a mode to filter that worldly and a mode for users to study it, Apple says.

The contented moderation regularisation was apt astatine the bosom of a skirmish with Elon Musk's Twitter precocious past twelvemonth and was the crushed Apple booted Parler from the App Store successful 2021. Apple fto Parler backmost connected the App Store erstwhile it added contented moderation.

Before it was released connected the iPhone successful the Bing app, the ChatGPT-based AI successful Bing produced immoderate creepy conversations, including threats against its users and pleas for help.

But Bing does person contented moderation and filtering tools built into it. Microsoft's AI allows users to downvote harmful responses, and includes a "safety system" that includes content filtering and maltreatment detection. Microsoft besides updated its Bing chatbot successful caller weeks to tamp down those creepy conversations, with the chatbot present often refusing to prosecute topics that could origin it to spell disconnected the rails.