Expert warns: Don’t share sensitive info with ChatGPT
OpenAI: ChatGPT has 700 million weekly, active users
(InvestigateTV) — ChatGPT – an easy-to-use, artificial intelligence tool – has seen explosive growth in recent years.
“ChatGPT is actually the fastest adoptive consumer technology in history so far. Millions of people jumped on it right away!” R.J. Cross, the online life program director for US PIRG, said.
The program uses a form of AI called a large language model. Type in a question or prompt, and it generates a response almost instantly.
“It was one that really broke the dam and got generative AI and chatbots on the minds of the American public,” Cross commented.
Cross said ChatGPT is here to stay but it also comes with significant privacy concerns.
“Privacy is a huge question with any of the chatbot services, and ChatGPT in particular right now,” he said. “You should not assume that any of your chats with ChatGPT are actually private. That in particular with http://openai.com/ is because there’s an ongoing court case with a legal order that has said that OpenAI needs to retain chat logs indefinitely because deleting them could be deleting evidence. So right now, anything you say to ChatGPT is likely being stored on OpenAI servers indefinitely, even if you request it be deleted.”
Cross said OpenAI has offered deletion tools in the past and hopes they’ll be restored.
“My personal role for myself is I never say anything to ChatGPT that I wouldn’t be okay with someone else reading,” she noted.
She also recommended never providing any sensitive information.
“OpenAI does not have to follow HIPAA. No tech company has to follow HIPAA,” Cross explained. “Your health data is only protected by HIPAA when it’s in the hands of a doctor’s office, a hospital system, or an insurance company. Anything you say to ChatGPT, or in fact, your Fitbit or your diet tracking app, no tech company has to follow HIPAA.”
For consumers worried about their data, PIRG has a privacy tips guide, including how to opt out of having your chats used for training.
And for those who want to use it for research, Cross said to do so with caution.
“ChatGPT cannot tell a difference between a fact and a lie,” she stressed. “Again, it’s identified patterns in speech, but it cannot nail facts. And so, this is something that I don’t see ever going away.”
InvestigateTV reached out to OpenAI about what they’re doing to improve privacy tools. The company recently re-launched a “temporary chats” feature - which deletes data after 30 days - but Cross said questions remain about how much information is actually being erased under an ongoing court order.
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