OpenAI Accuses Times Of Overreach In Demand For 20 Million Private ChatGPT Conversations

• OpenAI said The New York Times’ request could expose private and sensitive user data, including payment information.
• The startup added that its de-identifying conversations and restricting access to a small, secure team.
• The New York Times has not publicly responded to OpenAI’s accusations of overreach.

OpenAI accused The New York Times of overreach on Wednesday in the publication’s demand for 20 million private ChatGPT conversations, calling the request a threat to user privacy and a violation of “common-sense” security practices.

“As part of their baseless lawsuit, they’ve demanded the court to force us to hand over 20 million user conversations,” OpenAI Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey wrote in a blog post, stating that The Times’ demand goes beyond what is needed to address the legal dispute.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around OpenAI, which is not a publicly listed company, trended in ‘bullish’ territory, accompanied by ‘high’ levels of chatter over the past day.

Invasion Of Privacy

The AI startup stated that these conversations could include personal and sensitive information, such as payment credentials or private chats. It noted that this request is overly broad, unnecessary for the lawsuit, and poses a risk to user privacy.

“This demand disregards long-standing privacy protections, breaks with common-sense security practices, and would force us to turn over tens of millions of highly personal conversations from people who have no connection to the Times’ baseless lawsuit against OpenAI,” the blog post said.

In addition to legally pushing back against the demand, OpenAI said it is also de-identifying and scrubbing personal information from the sampled chats. Only a small and secure team, operating under strict legal and security protocols, has access to the data for this exercise.

The AI startup also said it's planning long-term security improvements, including client-side encryption, to make sure data is private even from OpenAI itself.

A Prominent Legal Battle

The OpenAI versus The New York Times case is one of the most prominent legal battles over generative AI and news copyright – but not the only one. The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023 in federal court in Manhattan, claiming copyright infringement for the use of millions of Times articles to train large language models, such as ChatGPT and Bing Chat, without permission or compensation.

OpenAI has previously pushed back on a request from The Times for access to 1.4 billion private ChatGPT conversations.

“They have tried this before. Originally, the Times wanted you to lose the ability to delete your private chats. We fought that and restored your right to remove them… We pushed back, and we’re pushing back again now,” 
–Dane Stuckey, Chief Information Security Officer, OpenAI 

If OpenAI is not successful in fighting back against the request, it said The Times’ lawyers and hired consultants would access the data in a controlled environment. The New York Times has not yet issued any comment or response to OpenAI’s blog post.

Read also: Jim Cramer Says The ‘Year of Magical Investing’ Is Ending – ‘Too Much OpenAI IOUs Flying Around’

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