Is Your ChatGPT history gone too? If you’re reading this, then you’re one of the victims of this AI bug that recently terrorized the ChatGPT fanatics.
ChatGPT has been in the news ever since it got introduced to the world. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot has made a lot of people’s lives easier through its presence. If you search for anything on this AI-driven tool, the answer will be right there. But one of the shortcomings of ChatGPT is that this AI tool is still in its testing stage and there are a few bugs that keep occurring within the tool too.
One such bug occurred recently which even lead to the data breach allegations over the AI tool ever since ChatGPT chat history got exposed to other users. People all over the world are facing privacy data breaches where their personal data is exposed to other users such as ChatGPT history, and payment information for now. So, what exactly is going on? Before that let’s see what ChatGPT is all about.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that is developed by OpenAI, an Artificial Intelligence research company. ChatGPT is a tool that easily processes natural language so you can have human-like conversations with the bot. You can generate multiple types of content through it like asking questions, writing blogs, essays, articles, formal emails, and even writing codes for computer programs.
You can also fetch realistic images and videos that look like they have been created by a human by providing prompts. The interface of the chatbot is very similar to that of an automatic chatbot available on the websites and customer service portals of the companies.
The ChatGPT service was launched by OpenAI on November 30, 2022, and by January 2023, it was envisioned to have 100 million active users worldwide. It was followed by an explosion of new AI products and services from organizations like Microsoft and Google.
The AI tool uses a Generative Pre-trained Transformer that helps it to use technical algorithms that help in identifying the conventions in the data. GPT-3.5, the third generation of Generative Pre-trained Transformer, a neural network machine learning model and a language model helps ChatGPT to develop responses for the users by fetching a substantial amount of data.
ChatGPT History Gone?
ChatGPT has become one of those reliable tools for a lot of people and people seek the tool for generating numerous types of content through it. One can even look at the history of the conversations they have had with the bot in the past if they have the conversations saved.
But what if you get to hear “ChatGPT unable to load history”? Something similar happened recently when the chat histories disappeared and were unable to load due to a bug and viewers went into utter dismay because of that. The message “History is temporarily unavailable,” was displayed in the place of the user’s ChatGPT queries and answers history.
Another bug occurred when some users complained that they could see the titles of chat histories of other users in their ChatGPT chat history. These conversation history titles were exposed to other users although the complete messages and content under these chat histories were still not visible to these other users. OpenAI tweeted about the same explaining the plausible reason in one of their update soon after.
The bug was reported by several users through social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter where they shared screenshots of the chat history window from their ChatGPT accounts.
According to screenshots posted by the users, even the conversations that were not initiated by the users were included in the left-side panel that displays the user’s chat history with ChatGPT. Some of these conversations were even in foreign languages which was the main realization point for the users to understand that these conversations might be of the other users of the tool that were leaked due to bugs or privacy issues from the end of ChatGPT. These users also complained about the fear of an actual data breach.
Not only this issue but another bug resurfaced after the payment info of ChatGPT Plus subscribers was exposed to other users. They could see another user’s first and last name, email address, payment address, last four digits of a credit card number, and credit card expiration date. According to OpenAI, full credit card numbers were not exposed and they believe that whose data was actually revealed to someone else is extremely low.
ChatGPT Chat History Gone: Is it AI Bug or a Data Breach?
The services of ChatGPT were temporarily paused by the parent company OpenAI for a day to fix the bug of other people’s chat history being displayed to other users. The bug was reportedly fixed the same day and the services were resumed later at the end of the day. The same was confirmed by a spokesperson in his statement.
According to the tweets posted by Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the issue in ChatGPT chat history transpired due to a bug that occurred in the open-source library. He also stated that the issue occurred for a small percentage of the ChatGPT users and only this small percentage of users were able to see the other users’ chat history in their ChatGPT.
Sam Altman also proclaimed that they are constantly working on restoring the chat history feature for all the users as early as they can. They revealed that they have validated the fix that was released for the bug in the open-source library but did not cite a proper time or date as to when the chat histories will be available for all the users once again.
How to Avoid Privacy and Data Breach in ChatGPT?
The bug made people realize the significance of staying cautious while using such online tools, especially AI tools as they are prone to data leaks. A lot of such tools are new and are still in their beta stages which indicates they are still not completely secure and should avoid posting or sharing sensitive information through these tools.
Even OpenAI has mentioned on its website that it is still not possible for them to remove particular messages and prompts from a user’s history and these conversations can be used by the company for training purposes thus the users should refrain from sharing any sensitive information in their conversations.
How to Save Your ChatGPT Conversations?
While it is not possible to save your chat history in ChatGPT, there is a fix that can help you automatically secure and save your ChatGPT chat history conversations.
Savegpt is an extension for the browser that enables users to auto-save their conversations with the ChatGPT chatbot and also adds a specific icon within the ChatGPT interface to provide the users easy access to the chat history conversations.
The button reads “Chat History” which is visible on the ChatGPT website.
SaveGPT extension was not developed by OpenAI but was released by a separate developer and it is easily available for the users and comfortable to access too.
You can easily autosave the conversations by following some easy steps after downloading the SaveGPT extension from Firefox or Chrome browser using a link.
Wrapping Up
The world is constantly becoming dependent on new tools and AI chatbots are one of the most recent ones. ChatGPT rose to popularity as soon as it was launched. The advancement in technology is great but one should always be conscious enough to protect their privacy and sensitive data from getting breached. While it is still not clear if the ChatGPT history disappearing was due to just a bug or a data breach, it is always advisable to refrain from sharing any sensitive information in the conversation with the chatbot.
FAQs
1. Is ChatGPT free to use?
Yes, the AI chatbot’s basic version is free to use as it is still in its research and testing stage. There is no limit on the usage of ChatGPT as of now.
2. Is ChatGPT reliable?
ChatGPT uses patterns and limited information for generating content and responses. The answers given by the chatbot are not reliable or accurate enough and thus can’t be trusted completely. It is advisable to cross-check the answers from trusted sources or the internet before using them.
3. Can ChatGPT collect my personal data?
According to ChatGPT’s privacy policy, they obtain information on users’ IP addresses, browser settings, and user data based on their interaction with the website like the type of content they engage with or the actions they take. They also gather data on the duration and variety of users’ browsing activities across various websites. OpenAI also states that to further its business objectives, it may communicate users’ personal information with unknown third parties without their knowledge.
