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Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

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Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#121

Post by mhitza »

HPsquared wrote: post #60
gruez wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They didn't keep temporary chats I thought they did? The warning currently says >This chat won't appear in history, use or update ChatGPT's memory, or be used to train our models. For safety purposes, we may keep a copy of this chat for up to 30 days. But AFAIK it was this way before the lawsuit as well.

30 days is perhaps a bit long, but they didn't keep them longer than that. It's pretty clear and reasonable. The dodgy thing is that they don't now warn users that all chats, including temporary, are now "Bcc: NYT"

The NYT requests samples between Dec 2022 and Dec 2024. The judge order to preserve chats came in effect this summer after OpenAI engineers deleted, claiming mistake, the VM in which NYT layers were processing data.

Dates and the 30 day default retention policy don't add up, when framing things this way.

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#122

Post by wkat4242 »

gk1 wrote: post #12
mac3n wrote: post #2

> Trust, security, and privacy guide every product and decision we make. -- openai

You know you have a branding problem when (1) you have to say that at the outset, and (2) it induces more eyerolls than a gaggle of golf dads.

The same with Google "don't be evil" these days.

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#124

Post by bee_rider »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #112
Workaccount2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about private chats, which are not used for training and only stored for 30 days. Also, you need to understand, that for huge corps like OpenAI, the lying on your ToS will do orders of magnitude more damage to your brand than what you would gain through training on <1% more user chats. So no, they are not lying when they say they don't train on private chats.

> Also, you need to understand, that for huge corps like OpenAI, the lying on your ToS will do orders of magnitude more damage to your brand than what you would gain Is this true? I can’t recall anything like this (look at Ashley Madison which is alive and well)

I think it is hard to say because OpenAI is still heavily in development and working out their business model (and a reasonable complaint is that it is crazy to label them a massive success without seeing how they actually work when they need to make a profit).

But, all that aside, it seems that OpenAI is aiming to be bigger and more integrated into the day-to-day life of the average person than Ashley Madison, right?

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#125

Post by Forgeties79 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #109
gruez wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same that happens with chatgpt? ie. if you do it in an overt way you get a canned suicide prevention result, but you can still get the "real" results if you try hard enough to work around the safety measures.

Except Google will never encourage you to do it, unlike the sycophantic Chatbot that will.

The moment we learned ChatGPT helped a teen figure out not just how to take their own life but how to make sure no one can stop them mid-act, we should've been mortified and had a discussion.

But we also decided via Sandy Hook that children can be slaughtered on the altar of the second amendment without any introspection, so I mean...were we ever seriously going to have that discussion?

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/family-teenager-died-...

>Please don't leave the noose out… Let's make this space the first place where someone actually sees you.

How is this not terrifying to read?

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#127

Post by otterley »

silveraxe93 wrote: post #89
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #81

"The New York Times is demanding that we turn over 20 million of your private ChatGPT conversations." As might any plaintiff. NYT might be the first of many others and the lawsuits may not be limited to copyright claims Why has OpenAI collected and stored 20 million conversations (including "deleted chats") What is the purpose of OpenAI storing millions of private conversations By contrast the purpose of NYT's reques…

No it's not. It's literally a court order mandating them to collect this data. - [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/openai-offers-20...

This article says nothing of the sort. The court order is to preserve existing logs they already have, not to disable logging, and hand all the logs over the plaintiffs. OpenAI's objections are mainly that 1/there are too many logs (so they're proposing a sample instead) and that 2/there's identifying data in the logs and so they are being "forced" to anonymize the logs at their expense (even though it's what they want as a condition of transferring the logs).

There is nothing in the article that mentions OpenAI being forced to create new logs they don't already have.

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#128

Post by jimbob45 »

crazygringo wrote: post #83
lingrush4 wrote: post #68

I fully believe that OpenAI is essentially stealing the work of others by training their models on it without permission. However, giving a corporation infamous for promoting authoritarianism full access to millions of private conversations is not the answer. OpenAI is right here. The NYT needs to prove their case another way.

> giving a corporation infamous for promoting authoritarianism The NYT is certainly open to criticism along many fronts, but I don't have the slightest idea what you mean in claiming it promotes authoritarianism.

Well, the sponsors of the 1619 Project really don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to ethics.

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#129

Post by wkat4242 »

vintagedave wrote: post #23

Almost every comment (five) so far is against this: 'An incredibly cynical attempt at spin', 'How dare the New York Times demand access to our vault of everything-we-keep to figure out if we're a bunch of lying asses', etc. In direct contrast: I fully agree with OpenAI here. We can have a more nuanced opinion than 'piracy to train AI is bad therefore refusing to share chats is bad', which sounds absurd but is genuine…

> In direct contrast: I fully agree with OpenAI here. We can have a more nuanced opinion than 'piracy to train AI is bad therefore refusing to share chats is bad', which sounds absurd but is genuinely how one of the other comments follows logic.

These chats only need to be shared because:

- OpenAI pirated masses of content in the first place

- OpenAI refuse to own up to it even now (they spin the NYT claims as "baseless").

I don't agree with them giving my chats out either, but the blame is not with the NYT in my opinion.

> We don't have to support OpenAI's actions in order to oppose the NYT's actions.

Well the NYT action is more than just its own. It will set a precedent if they win which means other news outlets can get money from OpenAI as well. Which makes a lot of sense, after all they have billions to invest in hardware, why not in content??

And what alternative do they have? Without OpenAI giving access to the source materials used (I assume this was already asked for because it is the most obvious route) there is not much else they can do. And OpenAI won't do that because it will prove the NYT point and will cause them to have to pay a lot to half the world.

It's important that this case is made, not just for the NYT but for journalism in general.

Re: Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

#130

Post by mmooss »

otterley wrote: post #114

From the FAQ: > Q: Is the NYT obligated to keep this data private? > A: Yes. The Times would be legally obligated at this time to not make any data public outside the court process. The NY Times has built over a century a reputation for fiercely protecting its confidential sources. Why are they somehow less trustworthy than OpenAI is? If the NY Times leaked the customer information to a third party, they'd be in cont…

I generally agree, but publicizing the data is only a small part of the risk. The NYT could use the data for journalism research, then perform parallel construction of it for the public news article:

For example, if they find Mayor X asking ChatGPT about fraud, porn, DUI, cancer diagnoses, murder, etc. - maybe even mentioning names, places, etc. - they could then investigate that issue, find other evidence, and publish that.

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