If me asking "how do I make cocaine", and getting a refusal from ChatGPT, as if that's what was stopping me from becoming the next Pablo Escobar, is considered damning, in a court of law, and a jury of my peers, I need a better lawyer.
When ChatGPT turns informant
41–50 of 144 posts
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#42I'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.
> I've always done my best to search from a browser context that isn't logged in as a result.
It isn't sufficient to avoid being logged in — you have to ensure that the search strings alone, grouped by IP address or some other signal, aren't enough to identify you. When AOL publicly released an archive with 20 million search strings in 2006, many users got exposed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release
There's also the issue of a site's Terms of Service when not logged in, which may allow an AI to be trained on your interactions — which could potentially bleed compromising information into the generative results other people see.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The practical short answer is yes, yes it will. It is not privileged communication. It is not considered private since you have left it on a third party server. It is discoverable via legal process to the third parties that retain the chat log. The same goes for communications on any social media or public forum, including discussions here on HN.
Emails on a third-party server are still considered private? That doesn't mean they can't be subpoenaed but they're far from being public.
Not exactly private, either.
> Under the ECPA, emails lose their status as protected communication in 180 days. After that time, a warrant is no longer necessary. Law enforcement can access your emails through a simple subpoena.
https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/online-scams/email-privacy-...
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#44I'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.
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 history to see what the user was actually interested in reading to get close to the same level of data the the LLM has about you.
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#45I'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.
Seriously, why is this always the first comment on HN? The formula never fails: 1. Criticism of anything related to AI 2. Comment: "I don't see how this is any different than phenomenon X that came before it". I have seen this by now maybe 400 times.
Turns out, we're the stoichastic parrots all along!
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? You'd have a very, very good understanding of my political viewpoints from the log of my Google searches. I'm asking sincerely, not simply to push back on you.
users type a lot more into gpt and share a lot more of their personal files and access to their cloud services
Users type a lot more often into search engines, and the largest one keeps files on all of their egresses and correlates it with full advertising profiles and what they do within other google properties (which may include their browser itself.)
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how you don't understand. Trying to recreate someone's internal thoughts and attitudes from looking at their search history is a pale imitation of this. Just the thought experiment of a customs officer asking ChatGPT to summarise your political viewpoints was eye opening to me.
How so? You'd have a very, very good understanding of my political viewpoints from the log of my Google searches. I'm asking sincerely, not simply to push back on you.
[deleted]
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? You'd have a very, very good understanding of my political viewpoints from the log of my Google searches. I'm asking sincerely, not simply to push back on you.
users type a lot more into gpt and share a lot more of their personal files and access to their cloud services
Google has all of that and more, right? They control the browser and devices that you use to access an AI app. They control the content shown to you in leisure and work. ChatGPT doesn't have that much exposure and surface area yet
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#49Most of the examples are "embarrassing" or annoying, and could perhaps ruin a relationship. But regardless of the memory setting in ChatGPT, I guess law enforcement can acquire all your chat logs from OpenAI. I guess what I'm saying is that while, yes, you could ask ChatGPT about this analysis, the true culprit is the actual data stored about you.
Use "Will I be ok with this transcript between me and ChatGPT being read back verbatim in a court of law?" as a guide for what you send ChatGPT.
The good old "New York Times rule" - https://legal-resources.uslegalforms.com/n/new-york-times-ru...
Re: When ChatGPT turns informant
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? You'd have a very, very good understanding of my political viewpoints from the log of my Google searches. I'm asking sincerely, not simply to push back on you.
If a nefarious actor opens your browser what is the process for them to quickly ascertain your viewpoint on issue X? Write a script to search and analyse? Versus just asking their specific question.
Grab search history and ask an AI to analyze it.