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…
If you store data it can come up in discovery during lawsuits and criminal cases. Period.
E.g., storing illegal materials on Google Drive, Google WILL turn that over to the authorities if there’s a warrant or lawsuit that demands it in discovery.
E.g., my CEO writes an email telling the CFO that he doesn’t want to issue a safety recall because it’ll cost too much money. If I sue the company for injuring me through a product they know to be defective, that civil suit subpoena can ask for all emails discussing the matter and there’s no magical wall of privacy where the company can just say “no that’s private information.”
At the same time, I don’t get to trawl through the company’s emails and use some email the CEO flirting with their secretary as admissible evidence.
There are many ways the court is able to ensure privacy for the individuals. Sexual assault victims don’t have their evidence blasted across the the airwaves just because the court needs to examine that physical evidence.
The only way to avoid this is to not collect the data in the first place, which is where end to end encryption with user-controlled keys or simply not collecting information comes into play.