In the meeting dated 12.09.2023 and numbered 337 held by the Board of Advertisement (“Board“) under the Ministry of Trade, several decisions were made on ChatGPT. We would like to briefly mention 3 decisions in which the Board examined the use of ChatGPT in commercial advertisements within the framework of unfair commercial practices.
First of all, we would like to state that ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence model that can have text-based conversations with people using natural language processing technologies. GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a member of a family of language models. ChatGPT, again in its own words, has been trained on a large set of language data and is capable of producing text outputs to text inputs. It can answer questions, provide information, make suggestions, and perform various text-based tasks while chatting. In summary, ChatGPT defines itself as an artificial intelligence model that can be used in customer service, language translation, text generation, and many other applications.
In this context, the Board has decided to impose a suspension penalty for the advertisements subject to the review for violation of the Regulation on Commercial Advertisements and Unfair Commercial Practices (“Regulation“) and the Law No. 6502 on the Protection of Consumers (“Law“) on the same grounds.
| Complainant | Commercial Advertisement Content Subject to Complaint | Assessment | Decision |
| LC Waikiki Mağazacılık Hizmetleri Ticaret A.Ş. | Advertisements and promotions on the website https://tr.linkedin.com/ that contain statements such as “According to ChatGPT, LC Waikiki is the biggest fashion retail brand in Turkey” | • The advertisements under review did not include objective research results obtained from the relevant departments of universities or accredited or independent research, testing, and evaluation organizations that confirm the statements in the advertisement.
• It has been observed that the answers given by ChatGPT are not up-to-date and precise and that the advertisements in question, which include statements containing the perception of superiority over competing products or companies, are misleading to consumers. |
Under Articles 63 and 77/12 of the Law, it was decided to impose a suspension penalty for the advertisements subject to the complaints:
(i) Violation of Article 7 titled “Truthfulness and Honesty“, Article 8 titled “Comparison Advertisements“, Article 9 titled “Burden of Proof” and Article 32 titled “Obligation” of the Regulation; and (ii) Violation of Article 61 of the Law entitled “Commercial Advertisement“. |
| Navlungo Lojistik ve Teknoloji A.Ş. | Advertisements and promotions published through the account named “navlungotr” on the website https://www.instagram.com/ | ||
| Demirören TV Radyo Yayıncılık Yapımcılık A.Ş. | Advertisements and promotions on the website https://tr.linkedin.com/ with the phrases “According to ChatGPT, the most popular chatbot based on artificial intelligence, “Turkey’s most iconic private television channel KanalD!” |
When the justifications for the decisions are analyzed, it is seen that the Board primarily stated that ChatGPT is not a source capable of proving objective research results. In addition, the Board also checked whether ChatGPT provides the expressions contained in the content of the commercial advertisement and mentioned that the expressions used are not up-to-date and precise. As a result of the rapid integration of ChatGPT into our daily lives, its use will inevitably be reflected in commercial advertisements and applications. However, with these decisions, the Board did not consider ChatGPT as a reliable proof mechanism and emphasized that ChatGPT, which directly or indirectly affects the purchasing decisions of consumers, should not be used misleadingly by advertisers.
You can access the decisions of the Board at its meeting dated 12.09.2023 numbered 337 from here.