You May Have Sent Your ChatGPT Conversations to Google
When you start a conversation with ChatGPT, you probably don’t expect it to show up in Google search results, but that’s exactly what happened to some users. As TechCrunch notes , filtering search results for “site:https://chatgpt.com/share” revealed transcripts of real conversations people had with the OpenAI bot. The chats, which appear to remain private to the account they’re associated with, were as easy to find as a recipe or a tech hack.
As the conversations, which were not intended for public distribution, suggest, some of these chats contained awkward or questionable language. TechCrunch reported finding a user asking ChatGPT to help him rewrite a resume for a specific job posting, which TechCrunch was able to find based on the conversation. Another user asked ChatGPT questions that TechCrunch said “sound like they came from an incel forum,” though the publication did not reveal the contents of the chat.
OpenAI Experimental Feature
Before you panic, there are a few caveats to this particular situation. First, OpenAI has since removed the ability to make chats publicly searchable , and as far as I can tell, any new searches for ChatGPT return zero results. Any chats you start now are not at risk of being revealed, at least not in this sense. Up until this point, the revealed chats in question were only searchable on Google because users had explicitly opted in to the feature. You had to click the “Share” button on a chat, select the “Create Link” option, swipe past the notification stating your name, the chat instructions, and any messages you add after posting remain private, and then flip the switch to make that chat visible in search.
Why make this feature at all? OpenAI told TechCrunch: “We’ve been testing ways to make it easier to share useful messages while still maintaining user control, and recently completed an experiment where chats showed up in search results if you gave explicit consent when posting.”
It’s not exactly obvious, although it’s not hard to see how this would benefit OpenAI. The more that’s known about ChatGPT, the better off the company is. And as the internet increasingly leans toward both AI (think AI reviews ) and forum answers (think Reddit ), I can imagine OpenAI seeing an opportunity to capitalize on this market. If a user asks ChatGPT a question that they think has been answered well, they might share that question with search engines so that other users can benefit, too. Now, when someone searches for the same question on Google, maybe that ChatGPT conversation pops up at the top of the search results, right next to the AI review or related Reddit threads.
OpenAI isn’t the only company experimenting with AI-powered public conversations. In June, we learned that Meta AI also has a feature that allows users to post their questions and generations — not in search, mind you, but in Meta AI’s public feed. It seems that AI companies are increasingly interested in publishing AI-generated content, whether it’s a conversation with a chatbot or a piece of art it creates.
Chatbots are not private
Now you can rest easy knowing that your ChatGPT conversations won’t end up on the first page of Google. However, don’t assume that your chats with any bot are generally private . In fact, it’s likely that the company that owns your bot is using your conversations to train their models, or that even users leaving reviews will be able to see your chats.
Depending on the bot, you may want to enable some privacy settings to protect yourself. ChatGPT’s ” Improve model for everyone ” setting controls whether ChatGPT can use your conversations to train its model, though disabling it won’t stop the company from storing your chats. Even temporary chats that don’t show up in your history are stored on ChatGPT’s servers for up to 30 days .
So you really shouldn’t use chatbots for anything sensitive or personal. OpenAI’s Sam Altman reminded us of this last weekend : In an interview with Theo Vaughn, Altman described how many users, especially younger ones, use ChatGPT as a therapist or life coach. Altman said, “Right now, if you go to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor for these issues, there’s a legal privilege… We haven’t figured out how to do that when you go to ChatGPT.”