OpenAI Updates ChatGPT with Enhanced Privacy Features

OpenAI disclosed that ChatGPT would save users’ chat history after an update was made. The conversation will remain in the system even if they have decided not to share their local data for model training. This implies both the free version and premium version of ChatGPT, which is applicable on desktop environments and a mobile version, which is planned for a later release. Through this functional extension, users would be able to retrieve their past conversations with ChatGPT from a sidebar, which is proof of more effective functioning while data protection is still maintained.

Temp-chat and memory characteristics added

One of the modified features is the introduction of Transient Mode for Tryout, which anonymizes all user experiences. Conversations that work in this way will appear in the user’s chat history, which applies to those who value their privacy above everything else. On the launch side, there is the introduction of a Memory feature for ChatGPT Plus users that helps the AI to remember the details from conversations, like where a person likes to have dinner or what topics were discussed lately. This aspect would rather the users be equipped with a personalized experience but without much data being remembered so that users can switch this experience off if they don’t want their information to be remembered.

Balancing functionality with privacy

That is the most recent variant of changes made by OpenAI to the security of users’ data, and it has become of serious concern. Saving the chat history required users to explicitly agree to its data being traded for AI improvement in the past times. Meanwhile, such an app demand actually made users’ decisions more challenging because of the trade-off between full usage of the app and privacy. 

This sets the ground for these new environments that mitigate this concern by decoupling chat history from data-sharing purposes. Moreover, this update is meant to improve on current privacy concerns, whereby AI has shared users’ sensitive data due to wrong answers. This prompted an urgent need for an opt-out option on the chat box and the creation of ChatGPT Enterprise, which is a dedicated version of the model and comes with assurance of data privacy since the conversation data is not shared with the model. With these updates, openAI is currently focusing on modifying its model to strike a balance between user-friendliness and security. In the access of Temporary Chat, and with the Memory feature you can adjust, OpenAI is showing that user privacy is its prime commitment while maintaining the functionality of ChatGPT. The target groups of such interventions and the privacy activists will, in all likelihood, perceive these changes as an increase in their personal data and AI systems’ privacy controls.

This article originally appeared in Mashable