Ride the Lightning

Yay! OpenAI Now Lets You Turn Off Chat History for ChatGPT

April 27, 2023

PC Magazine reported on April 25 that OpenAI has added a new privacy control to ChatGPT that can address concerns about the AI program tapping users’ conversation histories to improve itself. This is a big relief to many lawyers worried about ethical implications of using ChatGPT.

The company added the option to turn off chat history for ChatGPT, which can also prevent OpenAI from using your queries to augment the program. “Conversations that are started when chat history is disabled won’t be used to train and improve our models, and won’t appear in the history sidebar,” OpenAI said.

The new control has rolled out to users through the settings tab found in the three-dot menu next to the user account. An option called “Data controls” appears, enabling you to toggle off the “chat history & training storage” mode.

One small exception to note: OpenAI will store your conversations even if the chat history has been turned off. But the company will only retain the information “for 30 days and review them only when needed to monitor for abuse, before permanently deleting.”

Most of us can live with that.

OpenAI introduced the privacy control a month after a bug caused ChatGPT to briefly leak conversation histories from random users. A lot of people, including lawyers, were leery of submitting proprietary data to ChatGPT, which the program could then use to train itself on.

For users looking for stronger privacy, OpenAI says it’s working on a “new ChatGPT Business subscription” designed for users and businesses sensitive to the program collecting their data.

“ChatGPT Business will follow our API’s data usage policies (opens in a new window), which means that end users’ data won’t be used to train our models by default. We plan to make ChatGPT Business available in the coming months,” according to OpenAI, which did not reveal pricing.

The other feature ChatGPT has added is the ability to export all your conversation history data. The function is also found in the settings panel. Using it can pack all past conversations you had with ChatGPT into a file that will be sent to the email address tied to your ChatGPT account.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225, Fairfax, VA 22030
Email:   Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
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