Fixing the digital trust issue in ChatGPT for travel

As the demand and application of ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence grows more widely, concerns about privacy and trust and calls for regulation.

Earlier this month, Italy became the first western country to ban ChatGipt in a dispute over privacy controls. The country’s data protection agency has given OpenAI, the creator of a generative AI chatbot, a list of requirements to meet by April 30. On Tuesday, the company announced new privacy controls that appear to be a direct response to some of Italy’s concerns, including capacity. It allows users to disable chat history, thereby choosing which conversations to select for training ChatGPT models.

There was talk of the need for regulation in the U.S., but no action, although on Monday CNBC reported that a group of tech advocates representing Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and Oracle are backing legislation to regulate the use of AI in the National Privacy Act.

Meanwhile, it continues to launch new tools and services using ChatGipt. And travel is definitely one of the constants that see the rush of activities. In March, Expedia and Kayak became two of the first brands to release plugins for ChatGPT, and less than two weeks later, Expedia updated its mobile app ChatGPT for travel planning. Trip.com has connected OpenAI’s API to a mobile app, and dozens of other companies are developing integrations seemingly every day.

Some industry experts are concerned about the connection between these two issues – legal concerns about data privacy and trust, and powerful technology that is expanding everywhere.

“The level of power we have now, the level of risk is higher,” said Trevor Butterworth, co-founder and vice president of communications and governance at Indicio, an open-source decentralized identity developer. And the risk is evident in the types of apps that have captured the travel industry’s attention, buzzing with generative AI for personalization and fast, frictionless experiences for shopping and booking.

“Because an intelligent agent — whether it’s a travel agent or a financial agent — can access your data, learn from it, understand it intuitively… in relationships and patterns and behavior. And if that’s someone else’s and that’s hacked or you’re hacked, your security is compromised. This is totally dystopia level.

Resolving the ChatGPT trust issue

In a recent position statement, Butterworth and co-author Carl Schwepp, head of innovation at digital product studio Bay Tree Ventures, proposed a solution: Verified Credentials — defined by the W3C as “misinformation with authorship verification.” It can be cryptographically verified” – Decentralized Identity Communication Protocol (DDCOM) is used. According to the authors, these technologies enable secure, trusted human-to-AI interactions – reducing risk and enhancing a seamless experience for both companies and consumers.

Especially in travel, the use of verifiable credentials allows consumers to use chat GPT agents – called chat valets – to perform tasks such as booking flights and hotels, and then pay for reservations securely and digitally. Communication with the travel bank.

“We’ve spent 20 years building a sense of trust in the Internet and the brands and experiences we use on the Internet, about 80% confidence and 20% ‘this is okay,'” Schwepp said.

“With the new conversational models, AI and those interfaces, we have to build a whole new trust infrastructure. … We have payment channels in finance. We need identity rails and trust rails for conversation. But it’s going to be very challenging because it’s going so fast.”

Both Butterworth and Schweppe have been working with verified credentials for some time, but say the release of OpenAI’s plug-ins and API in March made them realize that ChatGPT created the perfect use case for this decentralized identity technology.

“It’s the only solution that can really manage the ongoing need for authentication between each party in the relationship,” Butterworth said.

“I recognize my chatgpt agent as mine, and it recognizes me as the owner. Whomever we are dealing with – for example the hotel – the chatgpt agent will understand that it is my agent and not someone else’s. And this verification process is ongoing as we exchange information. We continuously implement zero trust to ensure our data is secure.

Schweppe predicts that chat will eventually replace the website as the consumer interface for brands, eliminating traditional logins and creating demand for a new identity verification model.

“Up until this point, we’ve always had walled gardens where you can log in and protect your identity,” he said.

“Chat is no longer the same way. The chat will be your interface that can communicate and integrate with many services that don’t necessarily have the same wall. So the ID part becomes very important.

Reducing the risk of “false everything”.

Self-sovereign identity expert Jamie Smith, who writes about the topic on the Future of the Customer blog, agrees that digital trust is critical these days as AI creates an “explosion of fake everything.”

“In a world where we can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake, we need digital wallets to help us verify who we are and make sense of what we’re seeing,” Smith said.

We need ID rails and trusted rails for discussion. But it will be very challenging because it moves very fast

Carl Schweppe – Bay Tree Ventures

“Yesterday there were fake reviews on Tripadvisor, tomorrow they took my money for a package trip, but when I got off the plane there was no tour guide, no bus to pick you up, no hotel. All the reviews are there, but the website, the photos, the phone call with the agent – none of it is true. AI is gaining incredible potential, but we have a problem with the fakeness of it all.

But it’s one piece of the puzzle that consumers need to trust the brands and content they interact with in chat. To enable the full power of AI to provide consumers with personalized shopping and booking experiences, they need to trust their personal preferences and data – and that it’s safe. Conversely, brands need to recognize that the consumers they interact with in chat are “real” and that verified credentials will – ultimately – create an opportunity to build a fully connected travel experience.

“Now more than ever, the travel ecosystem demands more collaboration, more connected journeys, more value, and that’s the ultimate power of verifiable credentials — mobility,” Smith said.

“And in a world where personal AI is approaching us and becoming more valuable, it needs to be trained on data it trusts, and individuals need to know what’s happening to that data. And verified credentials create a larger supply chain of who produced what data, when and how.

“This is an early adopter region, so brands that are making an impact now have an advantage over others who are slower to move,” Schweppe said.

And for “big tech” like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple, Butterworth said it’s important to be aware of the risks associated with AI solutions, which are under threat globally.

“We’re seeing companies across industries and verticals take data privacy and security seriously. And [with verifiable
credentials] There is no transaction – it comes with the benefit of proven information,” he said.

“So the win-win aspect of decentralized identity and verified credentials is really visible to a lot of companies. And in the marketplace, who do you trust with your data? Can you control your data? That’s going to be a very simple and powerful message that I think will drive the broader marketplace from both businesses and consumers.”