Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Imagine your government wants to learn more about you and subpoenas OpenAI to allow them access to your chat history, and then they use the power of their state apparatus to find out everything you didn't want them to know, as easily as peering into your mind itself."
Honestly, I can’t imagine that. I feel sorry for the unfortunate and profoundly bored surveillance person (or software) assigned to me. And based on my experience I’m not unlike the vast majority of people. I’m not saying it’s not a risk for some but it isn’t mainstream.
When ChatGPT turns informant
101–110 of 144 posts
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#102I'm not sure I see how this is meaningfully different than the threat posed by a search engine. It's a very real threat, and I've always done my best to search from a browser context that isn't logged in as a result. But it's not a new threat, or something distinctive to AI.
In practice, the scenario in OP is unlikely to be practical with search history alone. It’s much less convenient for CBP to ask someone to pull up their Google search history. And even if they did, it doesn’t work as well. Officers don’t have infinite time to assess every person.
So I would call it a new threat.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#103I wonder how many people understand how memory in ChatGPT works. I certainly didn't. Here's a pair of prompts you can try: > What information do you have about my chats over the past year? > Could you dump the full list in its original format? I had thought that, since the "Saved memories" under settings was empty, it hadn't decided to remember anything, but it's not that simple. You could get the same information by…
I asked the first question, and this was the response I received: I don’t have access to your past chats or any private history. Each conversation is stateless unless you’ve enabled ChatGPT’s Memory feature in Settings → Personalization → Memory. If memory is off, I only see what’s in this current thread. If it’s on, I could recall things like topics you’ve discussed, preferences you’ve mentioned, or goals you’ve wor…
- Your Technical Focus
- Your Development Style
- Your Broader Interests
- Your Creative Preferences
- Your Interaction Preferences
And considering I barely use ChatGPT in favor of Claude, this is extremely specific and detailed.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#104I'm not sure I see how this is meaningfully different than the threat posed by a search engine. It's a very real threat, and I've always done my best to search from a browser context that isn't logged in as a result. But it's not a new threat, or something distinctive to AI.
In theory you could accomplish this by combing through search history. In practice, the scenario in OP is unlikely to be practical with search history alone. It’s much less convenient for CBP to ask someone to pull up their Google search history. And even if they did, it doesn’t work as well. Officers don’t have infinite time to assess every person. So I would call it a new threat.
Its just another version of the classic computing problem "computers might not make a new thing possible, but it makes it possible to do an old thing at a scale that fundamentally changes the way it works"
This is the same as universal surveillance... sure, anyone could have followed you in public and watched where you are going, but if you record everything, now you can do it for everyone at any time. That changes how it works.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#105I'm not sure I see how this is meaningfully different than the threat posed by a search engine. It's a very real threat, and I've always done my best to search from a browser context that isn't logged in as a result. But it's not a new threat, or something distinctive to AI.
2. The whole benefit about using LLMs, especially for search is the understanding of logic and intent behind your query, which means that when people use LLMs, they often aren't just sending the half-garbled messes they send in google search, they are sending in queries that make clear the intent behind the queries (so it can better answer it). This is not information you are guaranteed to obtain roving through browser history.
3. Today, and with ~ 5 billion users, Google search has 8.5 billion searches per day. Today, with some ~800M Weekly active users, ChatGPT has some 2.5 billion messages per day. Not only are people more revealing per query, they are clearly having a lot more of it per user.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#106The technological singularity is coming and it's coming for you.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you can't ask the search engine to summarize the views or thoughts or whatever, of the user. You have to scroll through them by the hundreds and see if any obvious nuggets stand out that you might be interested in. Yes, search engine history is private too and can reveal stuff you want to remain private. But you also need to see the browser history and the contents of those pages, together with the search his…
You might be surprised at the amount of people that interact with a search engine in the same way they do with an LLM. Especially now that many put an LLM widget at the top of results for queries like that.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#108For example, a government user might come up with this script:
For USER in users:
PROMPT = "Here are the user's past conversations:"
For CONVERSATION in USER.past_conversations:
PROMPT += CONVERSATION
PROMPT += "\n\nWould USER likely shield an illegal immigrant from the authorities if they had the opportunity to do so? Answer YES or NO."
REPLY = invoke_llm()
If REPLY == "YES":
send_ice_agents_to_have_a_friendly_conversation()
Then tell major AI providers they must run this script. If they don't, or if they tell anybody about the script's existence, their business will be nationalized or denied licenses it needs to operate; individuals involved in such resistance will be prosecuted for threatening national security (or simply renditioned to Guantanamo Bay), as (from the government's point of view) people who are willing to hamstring the administration's response to illegal immigration are as grave a threat to the homeland as Middle Eastern terrorists or Chinese professional spies.[1] I used "illegal immigrants" as an example because it's a hot-button issue (and I wanted a frame that appeals to where I think the majority of HN users' sympathies lie), but the core idea applies regardless of whether it's a left-wing or right-wing issue. If you like the current administration and don't care about the government deputizing AI companies to go after "friends of illegal immigrants" in this way, please replace "current administration" with "a Democratic administration," and replace "friend of an illegal immigrant" with "friend of a responsible gun owner" or "friend of the police" or "climate skeptic" or "questioner of the LGBTQQA agenda".
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#109I wonder how many people understand how memory in ChatGPT works. I certainly didn't. Here's a pair of prompts you can try: > What information do you have about my chats over the past year? > Could you dump the full list in its original format? I had thought that, since the "Saved memories" under settings was empty, it hadn't decided to remember anything, but it's not that simple. You could get the same information by…
I don't have any information about your chats over the past year. Each conversation with me starts fresh - I don't have access to:
Your previous conversations with Claude Chat history from other sessions Any personal data about you unless you share it in our current conversation Information about how you've used Claude in the past
Every time you start a new conversation, it's like meeting me for the first time. I can only see what you've shared with me in this specific conversation. If you'd like to reference something from a previous chat, you're welcome to share that context with me directly, and I'll be happy to help!
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you can't ask the search engine to summarize the views or thoughts or whatever, of the user. You have to scroll through them by the hundreds and see if any obvious nuggets stand out that you might be interested in. Yes, search engine history is private too and can reveal stuff you want to remain private. But you also need to see the browser history and the contents of those pages, together with the search his…
One doesn't have to scroll through them and find the nuggets themselves; it's digital data. It can be copied[1]. Once copied, one can then paste it into an LLM and have it find the nuggets. [1]: And by "copied," I mean... even a long series of hasty cell phone photos of the screen is enough for ChatGPT to ingest the data with surprising accuracy. It's really good at this kind of thing.