OpenAI, facing mounting backlash from users, removed a controversial ChatGPT function that caused users to unintentionally let their private and highly personal chats appear in search results. Fast Company exposed this privacy issue on Wednesday. Fast Company reported on the discovery of thousands of ChatGPT chats in Google search results. While this was likely only a small sample of the chats, some chats contained personal details, such as highly specific descriptions of relationships with family and friends, which could have made it possible to identify the users. OpenAI’s chief security officer, Dane Stuckey explained on X how all users whose conversations were exposed opted-in to indexing by clicking a checkbox after sharing a chat. Fast Company reported that users frequently share chats via WhatsApp or choose to save a URL to visit the chat at a later time. Fast Company explained that users may have been misled by the format of the text to share chats:
“When users clicked ‘Share,’ they were presented with an option to tick a box labeled ‘Make this chat discoverable.’ Beneath that, in smaller, lighter text, was a caveat explaining that the chat could then appear in search engine results.”
Initially, OpenAI defended this labeling, as “sufficiently clear,” Fast Company reported Thursday. Stuckey confirmed, however, that “ultimately,” that the AI company decided to “introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to.” Fast Company reported that this included chats about drug use, sex life, mental health and traumatic experiences.
Carissa Velez, an AI ethicist from the University of Oxford told Fast Company that she was “shocked” to learn that Google was “these extremely sensitive conversations.”
OpenAI promised to remove Google search results.
Stuckey described the feature as a “short-lived experiment” launched by OpenAI.
He confirmed that he called the feature a feature that OpenAI “to help people discover useful conversations.” he confirmed that the decision was also
