Tell HN: ChatGPT is the biggest privacy disaster ever

A lot of people share personal information with ChatGPT. Most people know this. But many might not know that what you write is by default used to train future versions of ChatGPT.

It's more concerning because the setting that lets ChatGPT use your chats for training is turned on automatically. This setting is saved only on your device, not OpenAIs servers. So, it's difficult for you to proof that you disabled the flag (if OpenAI is audited, they can say they never received prompt queries that asked for respecting the users' privacy).

There's also a new feature where you can give personal instructions with each message. These instructions can include personal details. The setting for keeping your prompts private ("Chat history & training") doesn't affect these instructions. To turn off this feature, you have to email OpenAI, but finding the right email address is hard, and OpenAI is known not to respond quickly.

I wanted to warn people about these privacy issues. I think the European Union might do something about it, but it could take a year or more for them to realize the degree of harm that is currently being caused. It looks like Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is pushing the boundaries. This situation reminds me of what Marc Zuckerberg did, but it seems much worse.

Also, when you turn off the "Chat history & training" setting, the chat sometimes clears itself. This happens quite a lot. I'm not sure if it's intentional or a mistake. Since it's been happening for over a month and affects my colleagues too, I think it might be done on purpose in order to annoy users who prioritize privacy.

FYI: It seems that OpenAIs models still include training data 1:1 (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38499575).