Italy has become the first Western country to block the advanced chatbot ChatGPT.
The Italian data protection authority said there were privacy concerns relating to the model, which was created by US start-up OpenAI and is backed by Microsoft.
The regulator said it would ban and investigate OpenAI “with immediate effect”.
Millions of people have used ChatGPT since it launched in November 2022.
It can answer questions using natural, human-like language and it can also mimic other writing styles, using the internet as it was in 2021 as its database.
Microsoft has spent billions of dollars on it and it was added to Bing last month.
It has also said that it will embed a version of the technology in its Office apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
There have been concerns over the potential risks of artificial intelligence (AI), including its threat to jobs and the spreading of misinformation and bias.
