Every week, 800 million people use ChatGPT to think, learn, create, and handle very personal parts of their lives. Can you imagine someone asking for mass access to those private conversations? That's exactly what's happening now: The New York Times is demanding 20 million private ChatGPT chats from users.
What The New York Times is asking for and why it matters
- The request is for OpenAI to hand over 20 million randomly selected conversations between December 2022 and November 2024.
- The Times' justification: to look for examples of people trying to evade its paywall. Does it make sense to ask for millions of chats to find that? OpenAI says no.
- This isn't the first time: originally the Times asked for 1.4 billion conversations and other restrictions like preventing users from deleting their chats. OpenAI fought those demands and partially won.
What OpenAI is doing to protect you
OpenAI has taken several actions and is litigating to limit the scope of the request.
