Skip to main content

81% think ChatGPT is a security risk, survey finds

ChatGPT has been a polarizing invention, with responses to the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot swinging between excitement and fear. Now, a new survey shows that disillusionment with ChatGPT could be hitting new highs.

According to a survey from security firm Malwarebytes, 81% of its respondents are worried about the security and safety risks posed by ChatGPT. It’s a remarkable finding and suggests that people are becoming increasingly concerned by the nefarious acts OpenAI’s chatbot is apparently capable of pulling off.

A laptop screen shows the home page for ChatGPT, OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot.
Rolf van Root / Unsplash

Malwarebytes asked its newsletter subscribers to respond to the phrase “I am concerned about the possible security and/or safety risks posed by ChatGPT,” a sentiment with which 81% agreed. What’s more, 51% disagreed with the statement “ChatGPT and other AI tools will improve Internet safety” while just 7% agreed, suggesting there is widespread concern over the impact ChatGPT will have on online security.

Recommended Videos

The discontent with AI chatbots was not limited to security issues. Only 12% of surveyed individuals agreed with the phrase “The information produced by ChatGPT is accurate,” while 55% of people disagreed. As many as 63% of people did not trust ChatGPT’s responses, with a mere 10% finding them reliable.

Generating malware

A person using a laptop with a set of code seen on the display.
Sora Shimazaki / Pexels

This kind of response is not entirely surprising, given the spate of high-profile bad acts ChatGPT has been used for in recent months. We’ve seen instances of it being deployed for all manner of questionable deeds, from writing malware to presenting users with free Windows 11 keys.

In May 2023, we spoke to various security experts about the threats posed by ChatGPT. According to Martin Zugec, the Technical Solutions Director at Bitdefender, “the quality of malware code produced by chatbots tends to be low, making it a less attractive option for experienced malware writers who can find better examples in public code repositories.”

Still, that hasn’t stemmed public anxiety about what ChatGPT could be used to do. It’s clear that people are worried that even novice malware writers could task AI chatbots with dreaming up a devastating virus or unbreakable piece of ransomware, even if some security experts feel that’s unlikely.

Pause on development

A person sits in front of a laptop. On the laptop screen is the home page for OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot.
Viralyft / Unsplash

So, what can be done? When Malwarebytes asked its readers what they thought about the statement “Work on ChatGPT and other AI tools should be paused until regulations can catch up,” 52% agreed, while a little under 24% disagreed.

This call from the public joins several open letters from prominent tech leaders to pause AI chatbot development due to its “large-scale risks.” Perhaps it’s time decision-makers started to take heed.

Alex Blake
Alex Blake has been working with Digital Trends since 2019, where he spends most of his time writing about Mac computers…
OpenAI plans to make Deep Research free on ChatGPT, in response to competition
OpenAI's new typeface OpenAI Sans

OpenAI has plans to soon make its Deep Research function available for free tier ChatGPT users.

The feature has been available since early February to Plus, Pro, Enterprise, and Edu subscribers; however, the AI company plans to expand availability beyond its paid users. Deep Research goes beyond the standard query results of the brand’s more traditional AI models. The AI agent has the ability to do extended research tasks on command without the help of a human. The feature can provide a detailed report on the subject of your choosing that might take between five and 30 minutes to compile.  

Read more
Viral trend drives ChatGPT to 500 million users
glasses and chatgpt

OpenAI’s flagship service ChatGPT remains as popular as ever, with the brand having hit a 500 million active user milestone in recent days amid the Studio Ghibli viral trend that came with the brand introducing its GPT-4o-powered image generation. 

The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, shared on X on Monday that ChatGPT gained “one million users in the last hour.” He compared the user spike to the burgeoning interest in OpenAI during its early days in 2022, when the chatbot gained one million users in five days, VentureBeat noted.  

Read more
The delay is over — you can now generate images with ChatGPT for free
OpenAI ChatGPT image

After an explosive launch, a viral trend, and some melted GPUs, the new image generation feature for ChatGPT is now available to free users. The feature originally launched on March 25 but because paid subscribers utterly flooded OpenAI with requests for Ghiblified images, CEO Sam Altman announced the next day that the rollout to free users would be delayed "a while."

Luckily, it appears this delay is over just five days later -- Altman has already published another X post saying that "image gen [is] now rolled out to all free users!"

Read more