Personal Info in AI Models Threatens Split in US, EU Approach

A German privacy regulator’s controversial finding that AI models don’t memorize personal information like names and birth dates has intensified an ongoing international debate over the fate of a person’s data once it’s gobbled up by large language models.

The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information determined in a July 15 paper that even though an AI system like a chatbot might be able to spit out personal data, the LLMs that power it don’t store that information. That’s because after an LLM is trained on data, it “lacks the necessary direct, targeted association to individuals” to ...