After Samsung Semiconductor had its fab engineers use ChatGPT to assist them, they began using ChatGPT to quickly fix errors in their source code, making notes in internal meetings and reports related to fab performance and process yield. divulged confidential information, such as data The company now plans to develop its own AI services like ChatGPT for internal use. However, for now, the length of questions sent to the service is limited to 1024 bytes. economist.
So far, Samsung Semiconductor has documented three instances of ChatGPT usage leading to data breaches. Three may not seem like a lot, but they all happened over the course of 20 days, so the situation is very disturbing.
In one case, a Samsung Semiconductor employee submitted the source code of their own program to ChatGPT to fix an error. This essentially disclosed the code of a top-secret application to an artificial intelligence operated by an outside company.
The second case was perhaps even more alarming, as another employee entered test patterns to identify defective chips and requested optimization. The test sequence for identifying defects is confidential. On the other hand, optimizing and possibly reducing the number of these test sequences can speed up the silicon test and verification procedure and significantly reduce the cost.
yet another employee neighbor clover Use the application to convert meeting recordings into documents and send them to ChatGPT to prepare presentations.
These actions clearly put sensitive information at risk, prompting Samsung to warn employees about the dangers of using ChatGPT. Informed executives and employees that it was stored on an external server and the company could no longer retrieve it, increasing the risk of sensitive information being leaked. ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but its open learning data capabilities can expose sensitive information to third parties, which is unacceptable in the competitive semiconductor industry.
The conglomerate is now preparing protective measures to prevent similar accidents in the future. Even after taking emergency information protection measures, access to ChatGPT may be blocked in the internal network if another incident occurs. Still, things like generative AI and various AI-enabled electronic design automation tools are clearly important aspects of the future of chip manufacturing.
When asked about the information leak incident, a Samsung Electronics spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the information as it is an internal matter.
