OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT, said on Tuesday that it would offer up to $20,000 to users reporting vulnerabilities in its artificial intelligence systems.

OpenAI Bug Bounty program, which went live on Tuesday, will offer rewards to people based on the severity of the bugs they report, with rewards starting from $200 per vulnerability.

Technology companies often use bug bounty programs to encourage programmers and ethical hackers to report bugs in their software systems.

According to details on bug bounty platform Bugcrowd, OpenAI has invited researchers to review certain functionality of ChatGPT and the framework of how OpenAI systems communicate and share data with third-party applications.

The program does not include incorrect or malicious content produced by OpenAI systems.

The move comes days after ChatGPT was banned in Italy for a suspected breach of privacy rules, prompting regulators in other European countries to study generative AI services more closely.

Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has taken the world by storm since its launch in November, has wowed some users with quick responses to questions and caused distress for others with inaccuracies.