Public ChatGPT Queries Are Getting Indexed By Google and Other Search Engines (techcrunch.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: It's a strange glimpse into the human mind: If you filter search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines to only include URLs from the domain "https://chatgpt.com/share," you can find strangers' conversations with ChatGPT. Sometimes, these shared conversation links are pretty dull — people ask for help renovating their bathroom, understanding astrophysics, and finding recipe ideas. In another case, one user asks ChatGPT to rewrite their resume for a particular job application (judging by this person's LinkedIn, which was easy to find based on the details in the chat log, they did not get the job). Someone else is asking questions that sound like they came out of an incel forum. Another person asks the snarky, hostile AI assistant if they can microwave a metal fork (for the record: no), but they continue to ask the AI increasingly absurd and trollish questions, eventually leading it to create a guide called "How to Use a Microwave Without Summoning Satan: A Beginner's Guide."
ChatGPT does not make these conversations public by default. A conversation would be appended with a "/share" URL only if the user deliberately clicks the "share" button on their own chat and then clicks a second "create link" button. The service also declares that "your name, custom instructions, and any messages you add after sharing stay private." After clicking through to create a link, users can toggle whether or not they want that link to be discoverable. However, users may not anticipate that other search engines will index their shared ChatGPT links, potentially betraying personal information (my apologies to the person whose LinkedIn I discovered). According to ChatGPT, these chats were indexed as part of an experiment. "ChatGPT chats are not public unless you choose to share them," an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We've been testing ways to make it easier to share helpful conversations, while keeping users in control, and we recently ended an experiment to have chats appear in search engine results if you explicitly opted in when sharing."
A Google spokesperson also weighed in, telling TechCrunch that the company has no control over what gets indexed. "Neither Google nor any other search engine controls what pages are made public on the web. Publishers of these pages have full control over whether they are indexed by search engines."
ChatGPT does not make these conversations public by default. A conversation would be appended with a "/share" URL only if the user deliberately clicks the "share" button on their own chat and then clicks a second "create link" button. The service also declares that "your name, custom instructions, and any messages you add after sharing stay private." After clicking through to create a link, users can toggle whether or not they want that link to be discoverable. However, users may not anticipate that other search engines will index their shared ChatGPT links, potentially betraying personal information (my apologies to the person whose LinkedIn I discovered). According to ChatGPT, these chats were indexed as part of an experiment. "ChatGPT chats are not public unless you choose to share them," an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We've been testing ways to make it easier to share helpful conversations, while keeping users in control, and we recently ended an experiment to have chats appear in search engine results if you explicitly opted in when sharing."
A Google spokesperson also weighed in, telling TechCrunch that the company has no control over what gets indexed. "Neither Google nor any other search engine controls what pages are made public on the web. Publishers of these pages have full control over whether they are indexed by search engines."
Even using the word "incel" (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone else is asking questions that sound like they came out of an incel forum.
Why is there so much animosity towards men that haven't found a partner?
Re: (Score:3)
Let's be honest: there is probably something "wrong" with many of them.
Not all.
But many.
And if you think there isn't animosity toward women who have not found a man, guess again.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, that would be a long, long list.
Re:Even using the word "incel" (Score:5, Informative)
It's the absolutely rampant misogyny in those spaces
Re:Even using the word "incel" (Score:5, Informative)
It's not that they haven't found someone, it's that they whine and moan it's because of the women, not them. Nothing is ever their fault. It's women and feminism and equality and any other excuse they can come up with.
Not only do they blame women, they're hostile to women, going out of their way to trivialize anything a woman does. Here's a recent example. Brittany Force has the fastest speed in NHRA history. In fact, she broke her own record a week after setting the first record.
An incel said it's really the technology which did the winning since all she did is press the pedal. Mind you, this line of thought would also apply to every man out there, but because it's a woman getting the record, she's undeserving. She's just a passenger. Other comments were about how she weighs less than a man so of course she would go faster.
There's your incels.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Even using the word "incel" (Score:5, Informative)
I'm fairly certain these kind of men have always existed. Prior to the Internet, they would of just been called nerds or dorks or some other negative slur. Some of them of course grow up, have relationships, etc. Others don't.
Now with the Internet, everyone can find a bubble to reinforce their beliefs. Now they have "safe spaces" where they can complain about their perceived problems while continuing to not improve themselves.
Of course, that doesn't happen in isolation. You now have a very vocal, in your face backed by politics, push for everything women over the past 4 decades. These have been mostly positive, good changes that have allowed women to more or less be men now. They are free to work any job, not marry, not have kids, or have relationships with men or anyone if they don't want to.
To pretend that kind of social change in a mere two generations wouldn't have any kind of push back is foolhardy.
To be clear, I'm not defending these males and their attitudes but it doesn't surprise me that a certain percentage of men feel this way. I mean, we have apps and facebook pages setup just to smear men. Sure, they put it under the guise of "women's safety" yet women have never been safer in history then they are today.
My advice to everyone, work on yourself, find happiness from within and disengage from the Internet/phone as often as possible so you can try for real world interactions.
Personally, I'm glad I'm older and am less concerned with dating. Internet dating is a shitshow and many young folk are absolutely shit at interpersonal communication because they never have to anymore. These dating apps give the illusion of unlimited choice (which makes it hard for anyone to make a choice) and really just further isolate people. Instead of going places and talking to people, they are busy swiping.
P.S. Great, Google is tracking which people are searching for which things. Nothing creepy about that. Fucking surveillance society.
Re: (Score:2)
Anon wants to fuck a toaster [reddit.com]
Re:Even using the word "incel" (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody means "single men" when they talk about incels. Incels - to both the general public, and to self-identified incels, refers [wikipedia.org] to "...member[s] of an online subculture of mostly male and heterosexual[2] people who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one [who] often blame, objectify, and denigrate women and girls as a result."
To be clear, the movement did start as a website and mailing list that was basically just for people who were chronically single, but with no connotations beyond that (it was actually a woman who started it). But it morphed beyond all recognition from its founding. To quote Alana (who started the original): "It definitely wasn't a bunch of guys blaming women for their problems. That's a pretty sad version of this phenomenon that's happening today. Things have changed in the last 20 years" and "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it".
Re: (Score:3)
Also, just to be clear, if you wrote your post coming from a personal perspective:
Don't define yourself relative to others. If you do, you will never be happy, in a relationship or out of one. I mean, sure, you may get the initial "sugar rush" from a new relationship, but you will be doomed to destroying it due to overdependency on the other person for your happiness and self-esteem, which is something that cannot be sustained. You need to be able to find happiness and respect for yourself on your own.
But
Re: Even using the word "incel" (Score:1)
Why is there so much animosity towards men that haven't found a partner?
Men, or women, that have not found a partner are not incels, they're singles that are looking for some loving, not victims that blame their would be partners.
In order to be an incel you have to be a super-victim, and blame everyone else as the reason someone isn't in bed with you. All the really good looking people you're interested in, their fault, all the other looking people, you write them off but ofc it's their fault, all the other guys and girls you're competing with, it's their fault too, then there'
Interesting (Score:3)
People asking for help on renovating a bathroom or recipe ideas are using an LLM trained on web sites already offering this information. And far easier to get at than having to continually ask the LLM for what you want. And not having to worry if the information is correct.
Brilliant.
Re: (Score:2)
I will say that while on it's surface it seems silly to use an LLM for recipes when you can get dozens of recipes for any dish but this is a bit of a self inflicted wound on the "recipe industry" as every food site has to bury the actual recipe behind pages of pontification, explainers, life stories and force you to scroll through at least a half dozen ads to get to the actual thing you want (exceptions like Allrecipes).
That said I still would not ask the thing that cannot taste or smell what I should make
Re: (Score:2)
You don't trust software which says you can use glue to keep your cheese from sliding off your pizza? Or that you can make mustard pancakes? What are you, a luddite?
Re: (Score:2)
Meh, stupid example. I'm not sure if you saw the original screenshot, but the cheese thing was a summary of one of the top results, which was a reddit shitpost. The AI summarized correctly, it was the redditor who shitposted.
Leak Plugged? (Score:2)
Strangely, when I try this I get no results. even with the exact query mentioned in the article, no results found.
But, Googles auto complete list, that shows upi when typing the query, suggests that there are a lot of people performing these searches.
ChatGPT Has A Snarky Hostile Setting? (Score:2)
Another person asks the snarky, hostile AI assistant ...
A key reason I find ChatGPT unusable is its over the top sycophancy, praising my every query with predictable cloying phrases. I might prefer one that was critical and challenging.
Getting back on topic (Score:2)
"Another person asks the snarky, hostile AI assistant if they can microwave a metal fork (for the record: no), but they continue to ask the AI increasingly absurd and trollish questions, eventually leading it to create a guide called "How to Use a Microwave Without Summoning Satan: A Beginner's Guide."
It's like the AI mined the entire database of /. comments on any number of topics, used that to reflect the attitude, prolly found countless questions/answers on quora or reddit about what happens when one mic
Where can I get that guide? (Score:3)