A shocking privacy concern made headlines on the internet using the power of Google search, as conversations between thousands of shared ChatGPT converged in the search results.
What Happened to Make This Happen?
ChatGPT has a “share” button that lets you share the conversations via a public link. It is an easy method of sharing a conversation with a friend or sharing it on the internet. What most of the people did not know is this:
Cross linking might provide awareness of links to Google and be indexed.
Thus, your flippant or even very intimate conversation with AI could have been found by millions of people unless you were careful.
What were the Nature of Conversations that have been Revealed?
There are things like: some of these talks covered some very sensitive areas.
- Mental health issues and trauma Personal trauma
- Relationship problems and family problems
- Business ideas, job applications, and resumes
- Even the questions such as: Is AI spying on me?
Although no names were shown, it is very personal and specific, with a lot of them making some users incredibly uncomfortable.
Why This Matters?
This is not to say that this is a tech glitch but it is more of a wakeup call on how simple it is to share more than we intend when online.
A lot of them never knew that the share option was also something to be found. It was not labeled well and there were no specific precautions such as a noindex to prevent them being indexed by search engines.
What Did OpenAI Do?
OpenAI was quick to respond as soon as the matter was exposed. They:
- Took away the location of the shared links that could be discovered
- Began collaborating with Google to delete indexed chats
- Disabled active links, although a few might be stored in the short run memory
OpenAI has also recommended users to review the shared chats and take away the ones they do not want to be public. To do this, you need to check out your ChatGPT “settings” and see the section where it says Shared Links.
