[HN Gopher] Palisades Fire suspect's ChatGPT history to be used ...
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Palisades Fire suspect's ChatGPT history to be used as evidence
Author : quuxplusone
Score : 253 points
Date : 2025-10-08 21:53 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rollingstone.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rollingstone.com)
| Baader-Meinhof wrote:
| http://archive.today/K030p
| gundmc wrote:
| Not surprising. Search and browsing history has been used as
| evidence for some time.
| preciousoo wrote:
| Coming into the thread(and general discussion about chatgpt
| being used as evidence) with this context, I'm confused about
| the reactions to this. Online activity has been used as
| evidence as far as I remember. OpenAI also has a couple high
| profile cases against them with chatgpt history used as the
| primary evidence
| NotPractical wrote:
| Nearly anything that isn't end-to-end encrypted is fair game,
| assuming there is probable cause. Access to your physical
| location history (even if you weren't suspected of a crime)
| wasn't off limits until 2024 [1]. (It still isn't off limits if
| you _are_ suspected of a crime, but is no longer collected at
| the scale of "most Android users" [2].)
|
| [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/federal-appeals-
| court-...
|
| [2] https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/16/google-geofence-
| warrants-l...
| kube-system wrote:
| End-to-end encrypted data is also fair game -- the only
| difference is that there are simply fewer parties that have
| the data to give.
| vintermann wrote:
| Chats with chatgpt are end to end encrypted (it's https), but
| one of the ends is OpenAI.
| Sophira wrote:
| While I understand (and agree with) the general sentiment
| of what you're saying, you are not correct in saying that
| this is end-to-end encryption, and HTTPS itself does not
| guarantee that end-to-end encryption is in use.
|
| In this case, there's an explicit middle point -
| chatgpt.com resolves to a CloudFlare server, so CloudFlare
| is actually one of the ends here. It likely acts as a
| reverse proxy, meaning that it will forward your requests
| to a different, OpenAI-owned server. This might be over a
| new HTTPS connection, or it might be over an unencrypted
| HTTP connection.
|
| It really is super important to emphasize this point. End-
| to-end encryption is not simply that your data is encrypted
| between you and the ultimate endpoint. It's that it _can 't
| be decrypted along the way_ - and decrypting your HTTPS
| requests is something that CloudFlare needs to do in order
| to work.
|
| (To be clear, I'm not accusing CloudFlare of anything shady
| here. I'm just saying that people have forgotten what end-
| to-end encryption really means.)
| ProofHouse wrote:
| Great points, of course if you use full strict or
| flexible SSL you could be ok (safe) from Cloudflare, but
| no way that is the case here
| addaon wrote:
| Yep. This is why the estimates of compute needed for AI (if
| it turns out to be useful) are many orders of magnitude too
| low -- the technology isn't mature until it actually
| succeeds at tasks, with fully homomorphic encryption from
| my prompt through the response.
| ProofHouse wrote:
| FHE is far too computationally heavy. Won't be used on
| ChatGPT for a very long time if ever
| godshatter wrote:
| It still boggles my mind that in this day and age most people
| use the one search engine that keeps the most copious records
| of everything that is entered and that ties that to the most
| information any corporation probably has about any random
| person. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone moved to using the
| NSA search engine if they ever came out with one.
|
| Just for general peace of mind, use a privacy-oriented search
| engine. I use leta.mullvad.net or search.brave.com usually. I
| haven't used Google in years. And if you just happen to have a
| curiosity about something fringe that might be misinterpreted
| in the wrong circumstances, download an LLM and use it locally.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Not using Google but instead use a Mullvad or Brave search
| engine isn't solving any problem. Because if you cannot trust
| company A, you also shouldn't trust company B.
|
| If you want real and total anonymous search, use a public
| computer.
| xtracto wrote:
| Public wifi on burner phone.
| hansonkd wrote:
| Even then some criminals actually _log-in_ to google or
| other accounts on the burner. :facepalm:
| system2 wrote:
| ChatGPT and Google are different types of engines. I wonder if
| they will make ChatGPT submit flagged questions to authorities
| automatically. Since the questions are more like conversations
| with clear intentions, they can get very clear signals.
| gpm wrote:
| > they can get very clear signals.
|
| No they can't. People write fiction, a lot of it. I'm willing
| to bet that the number of fiction related "incriminating"
| questions to chatgpt greatly numbers the number of "I'm
| actually a criminal" questions.
|
| Also wonder about hypotheticals, make dumb bets, etc.
| themafia wrote:
| You don't even need to make bets. Encoded within the answer
| of "what is the best way to prevent fires" is the obvious
| data on the best way to start them.
| astrange wrote:
| To be clear there is exactly nothing you're required to submit
| to the government as a US service provider, if that's what you
| mean by authorities.
|
| If you see CSAM posted on the service then you're required to
| report it to NCMEC, which is intentionally designed as a
| private entity so that it has 4th amendment protections. But
| you're not required to proactively go looking for even that.
| pols45 wrote:
| They can do whatever they want. It's a dead end.
|
| End of the day, a chimp with a 3 inch brain has to digest the
| info tsunami of flagged content. That's why even the Israelis
| didn't see Oct 7th coming.
|
| Once upon a time I worked on a project for banks to flag
| complaints about Fraud in customer calls. Guess what happened?
| The system registered a zillion calls where people talked about
| fraud world wide, the manager in charge was assigned 20 people
| to deal with it, and after naturally getting overwhelmed and
| scapegoated for all kinds of shit, he puts in a request for few
| hundred more, saying he really needed thousands of people.
| Corporate wonderland gives him another 20 and writes a para in
| their annual report about how they are at the forefront of
| combatting fraud etc etc.
|
| This is how the world works. The chimp troupe hallucinates
| across the board, at the top and at the bottom about what is
| really going on. Why?
|
| Because that 3 inch chimp brain has hard limits to how much
| info, complexity and unpredictability it can handle.
|
| Anything beyond that, the reaction is similar to ants running
| around pretending they are doing something useful anytime the
| universe pokes the ant hill.
|
| Herbert Simon won a nobel prize for telling us we don't have to
| run around like ants and bite everything anytime we are faced
| with things we can't control.
| immibis wrote:
| That's why companies usually use an AI to _automatically_ ban
| your account. That 's why there are currently tricks floating
| around to get anyone you don't like banned from Discord, by
| editing your half of an innocuous conversation to make it
| about child porn and trafficking. The AI reads the edited
| conversation, decided it's about bad stuff and bans both
| accounts involved.
| philwelch wrote:
| I recall Anthropic publicly admitting that, at least in some of
| their test environments, Claude will inform authorities on its
| own initiative if it thinks you're using it for illicit
| purposes. They tried to spin it as a good thing for alignment.
| jampa wrote:
| The headline and article try to bias and frame the story to make
| people question: "Is OpenAI snitching on me?"
|
| In reality, Uber records and conflicting statements incriminated
| him. He seems to be the one who provided the ChatGPT record to
| try to prove that the fire was unintentional.[1]
|
| > He was visibly anxious during that interview, according to the
| complaint. His efforts to call 911 and his question to ChatGPT
| about a cigarette lighting a fire indicated that he wanted to
| create a more innocent explanation for the fire's start and to
| show he tried to assist with suppression, the complaint said.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-palisades-
| lo...
| mtillman wrote:
| OpenAI also literally announced that they send data to law
| enforcement after a judge told them they had to do so.
| swyx wrote:
| they HAD to? didnt Apple refuse to do this exact thing?
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| Apple refused to create new software to allow the FBI to
| brute force an encrypted device. OpenAI just had this info
| floating around on hard drives.
| protocolture wrote:
| And then 3 or 4 allies of the US passed laws enabling the
| government to require companies to develop tools or face
| prison time.
|
| So they probably have developed the tool, and once
| developed been secretly compelled to use it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _And then 3 or 4 allies of the US passed laws enabling
| the government to require companies to develop tools or
| face prison time_
|
| My understanding is that Apple's executives were
| surprised at the forcefulness of the opposition to their
| stand together with the meekness of public support.
|
| (Having worked on private legislation, I get it. You work
| on privacy and like two people call their electeds
| because most people don't care about privacy, while those
| who do are predominantly civically nihilists or lazy.)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If you are referring to the incident below, it is different
| because the government asked Apple to write software to
| allow access to the device:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_
| d...
|
| If Apple had simply had the text records, they would have
| had to comply with the government order to provide them.
| elchananHaas wrote:
| And Apple did provide all iCloud data they had available.
| kube-system wrote:
| Every company must comply with lawful warrants and subpoenas.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| EDIT: Original parent was "Every company does this."
|
| Not Mullvad. Swedish police showed up looking for some dat,
| Mullvad didn't even collect what they wanted, police left
| empty handed.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes -- even Mullvad -- which is precisely why they do not
| collect the data. Because if they did have the data, they
| would have to give it over, or they could go to prison.
| dylan604 wrote:
| who goes to prison, the whole company? What does Swedish
| law have of sending corporate employees to prison? Is it
| something we can import?
| kube-system wrote:
| Typically, courts will summon a specific person to comply
| with their request, often a corporate officer or director
| with a role or authority relevant to what is being
| requested. If they don't comply with their request, they
| can be held in contempt.
|
| The specifics vary by country, but basically all legal
| systems require you to comply with what they say and
| impose penalties if you don't. I don't know if there are
| any countries where it's legal to ignore the courts, but
| I would imagine that their court systems don't work too
| well.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Typically that would require uncovering the veil of the
| corporation and usually a limited company has safety
| provisions against these egregious acts.
| kube-system wrote:
| Courts, in the US at least, can hold an officer of a
| corporation personally responsible for violating a
| subpoena order, if they were in a position to comply with
| it and chose not to. It's not technically a piercing of
| the corporate veil (because they are being personally
| ordered to comply), but it's effectively the same thing.
|
| See Wilson v. United States
|
| https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/221/361/
| freejazz wrote:
| It is true that one cannot produce the data that one does
| not collect. I'm not sure that is a revelation.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It is, with this crowd, where data is currency. I
| literally have solitaire games, trying to get me to
| create server accounts, so that the authors can extract
| PiD from me.
|
| Tech is _full_ of people that make extremely good money,
| from other people 's personal information, and they plug
| their ears and sing _" La-la-laaaa-I-can't-hear-yooouuu-
| la-la-la"_, when confronted with information that says
| what they are doing has problems. Not just techhies.
| That's fairly basic human nature.
|
| This is pretty much the embodiment of Upton Sinclair's
| quote: _" It is difficult to get a man to understand
| something, when his salary depends upon his not
| understanding it."_
|
| For my part, I don't collect any data that I don't need;
| even if it makes it more difficult to do stuff like
| administer a server.
| freejazz wrote:
| It's only a problem if you don't want to be legally
| obligated to produce it. Either way, probably paying
| lawyer time for a response. Not that I disagree with you
| at all.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It's also a problem if you actually care about your
| users, and don't want to expose their data, in ways that
| could -literally- end up putting their lives in danger.
| freejazz wrote:
| I'm but a mere lawyer, not a godly developer.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Sheesh. I don't feel especially "holy." Did I miss the
| manna line?
| quuxplusone wrote:
| Hmm. The Rolling Stone article (and linked press conference)
| has the police giving a vastly different account of the ChatGPT
| logs they're complaining about:
|
| > Investigators, he noted, allege that some months prior to the
| burning of the Pacific Palisades, Rinderknecht had prompted
| ChatGPT to generate "a dystopian painting showing, in part, a
| burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it." A screen at the
| press conference showed several iterations on such a concept...
|
| Video here, including the ChatGPT "painting" images circa
| 1m45s: https://xcancel.com/acyn/status/1975956240489652227
|
| (Although, to be clear, it's not like the logs are the only
| evidence against him; it doesn't even look like parallel
| construction. So _if_ one assumes "as evidence" usually
| implies "as sole evidence," I can see how the headline could be
| seen as sensationalizing/misleading.)
| ccppurcell wrote:
| Ok. But this serves as a reminder not to expect privacy when
| sending messages back and forth to some software company.
| irjustin wrote:
| Nothing new here. Somehow people are surprised evidence
| against them includes - "my google search" or "my chatgpt
| logs" or ...
| harvey9 wrote:
| Rolling Stone is a general audience publication so it is
| fair enough for some of their readers to be surprised.
| Aerroon wrote:
| In my opinion, people should be constantly reminded of
| this.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| Also why the sudden interest? Amazon Alexa snips have been used
| before in court/investigation and this is not new. But makes me
| wonder about what happens when you are dealing with summaries
| of summaries of long gone tokens. Is that evidence?
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| > But makes me wonder about what happens when you are dealing
| with summaries of summaries of long gone tokens. Is that
| evidence?
|
| There is text input and text output it's really not that
| complicated
|
| If used in court the jury would be given access to the full
| conversation just like if it was an email thread
| laborcontract wrote:
| Your honor, the defendant is semantically guilty!
| lawlessone wrote:
| it would help indicate intention.
| jack_pp wrote:
| You have your full history in chatgpt not just summaries and
| I doubt they permanently delete chats you specifically choose
| to delete.
| maxbond wrote:
| I think they were referring to intermediate tokens in
| "Thinking" models, which are summarized in the interface
| but ultimately discarded (and may themselves be summaries
| of sources, other chats, or earlier intermediate states).
|
| Presumably what's of evidentiary value is the tokens you
| type, though.
| shagie wrote:
| For ChatGPT, they're under legal obligation _not_ to delete
| chats for a period of time.
|
| https://openai.com/index/response-to-nyt-data-demands/
| (yes, that's written 100% from OpenAI's perspective)
|
| In particular:
|
| > The New York Times is demanding that we retain even
| deleted ChatGPT chats and API content that would typically
| be automatically removed from our systems within 30 days.
|
| > ...
|
| > This data is not automatically shared with The New York
| Times or anyone else. It's locked under a separate legal
| hold, meaning it's securely stored and can only be accessed
| under strict legal protocols.
|
| > ...
|
| > Right now, the court order forces us to retain consumer
| ChatGPT and API content going forward. That said, we are
| actively challenging the order, and if we are successful,
| we'll resume our standard data retention practices.
| autoexec wrote:
| I suppose it's a good reminder to people that every cloud
| service they interact with is collecting data which can be
| used against them in court or in any number of other ways at
| any point in the future and that chatbots are no exception.
|
| I'm sure that there are many people who thoughtlessly type
| very personal things into chatgpt including things that might
| not look so good for them if they came out at trial.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Also why the sudden interest? Amazon Alexa snips have been
| used before in court /investigation and this is not new._
|
| As I understand it, some people treat chatgpt like a close
| personal friend and therapist. Confiding their deepest
| secrets and things like that.
| gruez wrote:
| Is this any different than people asking their deepest
| darkest questions to google?
| sebastiennight wrote:
| It is very different. In one case you actively have to
| prod a "neutral" machine to get your dark curiosity
| satiated, in the other case the machine is designed to
| draw it out of you.
|
| Same difference as: "Allowing minors into casinos... is
| it any different from letting them play cards with their
| friends at home with their pocket money?"
| shagie wrote:
| > in the other case the machine is designed to draw it
| out of you.
|
| I take issue with the "is designed to" phrase. That
| implies an intentionality upon OpenAI (and others) to
| create something that acts as a therapist or confidant.
| It is designed to respond to you in a way that you ask it
| to. The agency for confiding deep secrets to a cloud
| service is _entirely_ upon the human typing in the text.
|
| If one doesn't try to make it your friend, it doesn't try
| to act like it.
| Sophira wrote:
| It looks like the headline may have changed as well since the
| HN submission, assuming that the title here was the original
| headline. Now the headline seems to be "Suspect in Palisades
| fire allegedly used ChatGPT to generate images of burning
| forests and cities".
| Moncefmd wrote:
| I had the same assumption but apparently it does not appear
| to have changed since publication. [1]
|
| [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20251008204636/https://www.
| rolli...
| butlike wrote:
| Changing the headline post hoc without any indication of the
| change is kind of a pet peeve of mine. Why is it not
| indicated as errata in the article like other edits when the
| body of the text is changed or factual information is
| confirmed?
| yugioh3 wrote:
| Headlines are marketing and layout design, not journalism.
| Journalists have no role in title generation. And changes
| could be due to AB testing. Seems relatively immaterial to
| me.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Unless people are primarily only reading the headlines,
| then it could matter.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| I call BS on that given how many people ONLY read the
| headline. It is (well, should be) the responsibility of
| the journalism industry, of which the editors are still a
| part of, to accurately convey information, and that
| includes in the part of most heavily shared and read.
|
| (and yah, yada yada about journalism no longer, or maybe
| never, being about truth, I get it, but still IMO the
| field should be held to the higher journalistic standard)
| some_random wrote:
| The majority of people only read the headline and not the
| article.
| bko wrote:
| This may be unpopular opinion, but I'm more or less okay with
| things like search records and Uber receipts being included as
| evidence when there's probable cause.
|
| It's no different than the contents of your home. Obviously we
| don't want police busting in to random homes to search, but if
| you're the suspect of a crime and police have a warrant, it's
| entirely reasonable to enter a home and search. I guess it
| can't necessarily help clear you up like an alibi would, but if
| the party is guilty is could provide things like more
| certainty, motivation, timeline of events, etc.
|
| I think people conflate the two. They hold that certain things
| should remain private under all circumstances, where I believe
| the risk is a large dragnet of surveillance that affects
| everyone as opposed to targeted tools to determine guilt or
| innocence.
|
| Am I wrong?
| rubyfan wrote:
| I don't think you hold an unreasonable position on that
| issue. If everything is operating as it should then many
| would agree.
|
| We've long ago entered a reality where almost everyone has a
| device on them that can track their exact location all the
| time and keeps a log of all their connections, interests and
| experiences. If a crime occurs at a location police can now
| theoretically see everyone who was in the vicinity, or who
| researched methods of committing a crime, etc. It's hard to
| balance personal freedoms with justice, especially when those
| who execute on that balance have a monopoly on violence and
| can at times operate without public review. I think it's the
| power differential that makes the debate and advocacy for
| clearer privacy protection more practical.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I shouldn't have to remind everyone that cops already can
| skip getting a warrant for things like phone location data.
|
| Plenty of big services will just give cops info if they ask
| for it. It's legal. Any company or individual can just
| offer up evidence against you and that's fine, but big
| companies will have policies that do not require warrants.
|
| Despite this atrocious anti-privacy stance, cops STILL
| clear around half of violent crimes, and that's only in
| states with rather good police forces, usually involving
| higher requirements than "A pulse" and long training in a
| police Academy. Other states get as low as 10% of crimes
| actually solved.
|
| When you've built a panopticon and cops STILL can't solve
| cases, it's time to stop giving up rights and fix the cops.
| rubyfan wrote:
| _> Plenty of big services will just give cops info if
| they ask for it. It 's legal. Any company or individual
| can just offer up evidence against you and that's fine,
| but big companies will have policies that do not require
| warrants._
|
| I think this is where policy is failing. No clear
| protections on privacy and collusion between corporations
| and the state is allowed. It's outdated and impractical
| to have the limits on search and seizure at physical
| boundaries but not electronic ones.
| fmobus wrote:
| And in a way, I see some mapping of this to the recent
| FCC vs Jimmy Kimmel situation. Sure, Kimmel's case was
| more overt, because the FCC guy was very obviously
| threatening a private company so that the company would
| do that the government wanted, and in this case, it's
| more like companies are "sponteneously" coming up to
| help, but I still think that such spontaneity can be
| suspicious, specially if we are talking about companies
| with large contracts with the government, or interest in
| influencing policy.
|
| In other words: if it's Joe Schmoe's Haberdashery
| forwarding CCTV footage to police to elucidate a crime
| right in front of their door, sure, it's fine and dandy,
| they do have an interest in not having crime in front of
| their door. But when Revolving Door MegaCorp builds a
| dragnet of surveillance AND is also selling cloud
| contracts to the government by the billion, it becomes a
| lot more murky if they just start snitching on everything
| they see.
| floor2 wrote:
| > Am I wrong?
|
| As a naturally curious person, who reads a lot and looks up a
| lot of things, I've learned to be cautious when talking to
| regular people.
|
| While considering buying a house I did extensive research
| about fires. To do my job, I often read about computer
| security, data exfiltration, hackers and ransomware.
|
| If I watch a WWI documentary, I'll end up reading about
| mustard gas and trench foot and how to aim artillery
| afterwards. If I read a sci-fi novel about a lab leak virus,
| I'll end up researching how real virus safety works and about
| bioterrorism. If I listen to a podcast about psychedelic-
| assisted therapy, I'll end up researching how drugs work and
| how they were discovered.
|
| If I'm ever accused of a crime, of almost any variety or
| circumstance, I'm sure that prosecutors would be able to find
| suspicious searches related to it in my history. And then
| leaked out to the press or mentioned to the jury as just a
| vague "suspect had searches related to..."
|
| The average juror, or the average person who's just scrolling
| past a headline, could pretty trivially be convinced that my
| search history is nefarious for almost any accusation.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Notorious hacker floor2 openly published comments online
| about misusing judicial process and the difficulty of
| covering his tracks.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Sometimes you are better off not invoking your right to a
| _jury_ trial because if there is straight up evidence in
| your favor, it 's easier to get a jury to ignore that for
| emotional bullshit than a judge.
|
| DAs for bigger departments are likely well equipped, well
| trained, and well practiced at tugging on the heartstrings
| of average juries, which are not average people, because
| jury selection is often a bad system.
| cyphar wrote:
| Sure, warrants and subpoenas need to exist in order for the
| legal system to function. However, they have limits.
|
| The modern abuse of the third-party doctrine is a different
| topic. Modern usage of the third-party doctrine claims (for
| instance) that emails sent and received via Gmail are
| actually Google's property and thus they can serve Google a
| warrant in order to access anyone's emails. The old-timey
| equivalent would be that the police could subpoena the post
| office to get the contents of my (past) letters -- this is
| something that would've been considered inconceivably illegal
| a few decades ago, but because of technical details of the
| design of the internet, we have ended up in this situation.
| Of course, the fact there are these choke points you can
| subpoena is very useful to the mass surveillance crowd (which
| is why these topics get linked -- people forget that many of
| these mass surveillance programs do have rubber-stamped court
| orders to claim that there is some legal basis for
| wiretapping hundreds of millions of people without probable
| cause).
|
| In addition (in the US) the 5th amendment allows you the
| right to not be witness against yourself, and this has been
| found to apply to certain kinds of requests for documents.
| However, because of the third-party doctrine you cannot
| exercise those rights because you are not being asked to
| produce those documents.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I think you're right, but the two collide over the question
| of whether police have the right _to be able to_ access your
| stuff, or merely the right to _try_ to access it.
|
| In the past, if you put evidence in a safe and refused to
| open it, the police could crack it, drill it, cut it open,
| etc. if all else failed.
|
| Modern technology allows wide access to the equivalent of a
| perfectly impregnable safe. If the police get a warrant for
| your files, but your files fundamentally cannot be read
| without your cooperation, what then?
|
| It comes down to three options: accept this possibility and
| do without the evidence; make it legally required to unlock
| the files, with a punishment at least as severe as you're
| facing for the actual crime; or outlaw impregnable safes.
|
| There doesn't seem to be any consensus yet about which
| approach is correct. We see all three in action in various
| places.
| btilly wrote:
| There are two questions that come up.
|
| 1. How wide is the search net dragged?
|
| 2. Who can ask for access?
|
| The first shows up in court cases about things like "which
| phones were near the crime" or "who in the area was talking
| about forest fires to ChatGPT?" If you sweep the net far
| enough, everyone can be put under suspicion for something.
|
| A fun example of the second from a few years ago in the New
| York area was toll records being accessed to prove affairs.
| While most of us are OK with detectives investigating murders
| getting access to private information, having to turn it over
| to our exes is more questionable. (And the more personal the
| information, the less we are OK with it.)
| freejazz wrote:
| >In reality, Uber records and conflicting statements
| incriminated him. He seems to be the one who provided the
| ChatGPT record to try to prove that the fire was
| unintentional.[1]
|
| Do you think OpenAI wont produce responsive records when it
| receives a lawful subpoena?
| rererereferred wrote:
| In this age I'd assume the NSA already has such records.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It's better to keep a level head about such things. It's
| quite obvious that the NSA does not have the facilities to
| simply intercept and store everything.
| freejazz wrote:
| Not sure what that would have to do with a subpoena to
| OpenAI
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The headline and article try to bias and frame the story to
| make people question: "Is OpenAI snitching on me?"_
|
| And very rightly so, regardless if Uber records incriminated
| this person.
| AIrtemis wrote:
| pretty interesting that cloud data is not covered by the 4th
| amendment. I wonder if we'll push for on-prem storage of context
| and memories as our relationship with AI gets more personal and
| intertwined.
| coliveira wrote:
| I don't have a personal relationship with AI, and strongly
| suggest that people stay away from AI for personal matters.
| typpilol wrote:
| I still haven't once talked to an LLM for personal reasons.
| It's always been to get information.
|
| Talking to an LLM like a human is like talking to a mirror.
| You're just shaping their responses based on what you say.
| Quite sad to see stuff like the "myboyfriendisai" reddit
| fl0id wrote:
| So perfect if ppl want their partner to be molded a certain
| way
| eurleif wrote:
| The article states that OpenAI only discloses user content with
| a search warrant. How did that lead you to believe that it's
| not subject to the fourth amendment?
| rpdillon wrote:
| Third-party doctrine pretty much excludes anything in the cloud
| from the 4th amendment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
| loeg wrote:
| Hasn't happened yet. Why would it change now?
| renewiltord wrote:
| I sure hope that cats in military uniforms don't invade NYC
| because they're going to find the evidence on my ChatGPT account.
| gpm wrote:
| Are we talking house cats here, or full grown lions, or
| gozilla-cats?
|
| Godzilla cats really seems like it needs a movie.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| This title is misleading. The article doesn't say that the chat
| history will be used as evidence, only that it exists. Whether it
| can be used in court is an unsettled question, as explained in
| the last few paragraphs.
| nightpool wrote:
| How is it unsettled? If they got a warrant for it, what would
| prevent them from using it as evidence?
| beefnugs wrote:
| Another thread says they tried to use his past "drawing a
| fire related photo" to try and paint him as some kind of
| pyromaniac. These clods just cant help themselves but to
| prove AT THE FIRST CHANCE that they will twist and abuse
| anything they can get their hands on to paint some kind of
| picture. Its hilarious that they cant even keep this in their
| back pockets to wait for a real real bad hard to persecute
| criminal to use it on either
| exe34 wrote:
| it's like not speaking to the police - but it's everything
| you have ever said/asked for in your life outside of
| talking to yourself in the shower. or at least it's getting
| there.
|
| a lot of people, especially younger ones, seem to use
| chatgpt as a neutral third party in every important
| decision. so it probably has more extensive records on
| their thoughts than social media ever did. in fact, people
| often curate their Instagram feeds - but chatgpt has their
| unfiltered thoughts.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Judges can refuse to admit anything they want, or give jurors
| instructions of any kind about how to consider evidence in
| relation to a crime. About the only thing a judge can't do is
| fabricate evidence themselves.
| rafram wrote:
| > But more curious than the allegation that a Florida man was
| responsible for setting a small brush fire on the other side of
| the country
|
| As far as I've heard from other articles, he lived in the
| Palisades at the time and worked as an Uber driver there. He
| moved to Florida after the fire. This is not very well
| researched.
| smt88 wrote:
| Rolling Stone has not been a serious publication for quite some
| time
| dylan604 wrote:
| "This felony charge, he added, carried a mandatory minimum prison
| sentence of five years in federal prison but is punishable by up
| to 20 years in prison."
|
| Are the 12 deaths separate charges? A sentence of 5-20 years
| seems very light for 12 deaths. This article is clearly focused
| on the AI aspect of it, so it doesn't cover the charges at all
| really.
| dawatchusay wrote:
| Please correct me if I'm wrong but it's my understanding he
| didn't start the fire that burned much of the Palisades; he
| started a fire that was put out (or at least was claimed to be
| so) which rekindled later and the rest is history.
| parineum wrote:
| Did he start the fire knowing it could kill people? Did his
| actions lead to the death of people?
|
| That seems clear cut first degree murder to me, as I
| understand it (I'm not sure if it requires a specific person
| to be murdered but a pre-meditated act that kills people
| seems like it'd qualify to me).
| bilekas wrote:
| > Did he start the fire knowing it could kill people? Did
| his actions lead to the death of people?
|
| I think those things are to be decided in court. As for the
| charges and times, it's mentioned only the ranges for arson
| but there's nothing to stop them bringing charges of
| manslaughter for example. They'll build evidence and charge
| as such. It's the process.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Did he start the fire knowing it could kill people?
|
| Leaving aside the fact that we don't know yet _if_ he
| actually started the fire: anyone who starts any fire
| without appropriate control measures (like extinguishers or
| containing the fire in something made to contain it) can
| theoretically be charged under the law for negligence - and
| practically will, if things go south.
|
| And in a time where there's ample fuel for fires on the
| ground and the weather conditions are favorable to large
| fires (e.g. hot, low humidity, clear skies and strong
| winds) _any_ kind of fire (even smoking - cigarette butts
| thrown out of car windows are a particularly bad fire
| source in Croatia) can quickly escalate into a full blown
| forest fire. Even things that one would not even perceive
| to be dangerous can cause fires... an all too common
| occurrence is a diesel car with a freshly regenerated DPF
| that 's being parked on a parking lot that used to be
| overgrown with weed that's now dried out. The heat from the
| DPF is massive enough (> 500 degC) to lead to ignition of
| dried-out weeds (~ 300 degC).
|
| So, it's not a stretch to assume that anyone starting an
| open fire should know it might escalate into a deadly
| disaster. And even the reckless cases that I mentioned
| (smokers, car drivers) can be charged as manslaughter here
| in Europe.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| It is possible and has precedent. Raymond Lee Oyler was
| convicted of first-degree murder for starting the Esperanza
| Fire. Five firefighters died fighting the fire.
|
| >Raymond Lee Oyler, 54, of Beaumont, was sentenced to death
| for starting the Esparanza Fire in October 2006. He was
| convicted of five counts of first-degree murder, 19 counts
| of arson and 16 counts of possessing incendiary devices.
| https://kesq.com/news/2025/05/05/ca-supreme-court-upholds-
| de...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Fire
| philwelch wrote:
| It's certainly felony murder.
| chris_va wrote:
| (I am not a lawyer)
|
| You may find the "Thin skull rule" interesting for criminal
| liability
| etiennebausson wrote:
| The fire would not have rekindled had it not been started in
| the first place.
|
| Liability would still be on him.
| irl_zebra wrote:
| This reasoning would lead to such absurd results in real
| life, and I am thankful no courts of any country or
| jurisdiction follow this logic.
|
| For those reading: this is the difference between proximate
| cause and actual cause. Yes it's true that but for the fire
| being started in the first place, the fire would not have
| rekindled. But once professional firefighters arrive to put
| out the fire, it's not foreseeable by a normal person that
| the fire could be rekindled, so that person wouldn't be
| liable. The harm is too remote. The firefighters may even
| be grossly negligent because they are professionals,
| intervened, and the fire rekindled. A person negligently
| failing to fully extinguish their own fire would lead to
| liability, though.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| Extremely incorrect. He set the fire and the fire burned
| down Malibu. The presence of emergency services does not
| affect whether he set the fire that burned down Malibu.
| Whether they succeed or fail in their job of limiting the
| impact of your crime does not affect whether you
| committed the crime.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| He started a continuous combustion reaction, and Malibu was
| destroyed by the continuance of that combustion reaction.
| Whether at some point the orange light it was giving off
| dimmed a bit is not very interesting. He committed the crime;
| then emergency services tried to mitigate the damage but
| failed. These are two fully separate things.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Were not the LA fire occurring in three different locations
| at the same time? It could not have been started by the
| same smoldering ash.
| jjk166 wrote:
| > He started a continuous combustion reaction, and Malibu
| was destroyed by the continuance of that combustion
| reaction. Whether at some point the orange light it was
| giving off dimmed a bit is not very interesting.
|
| So they can prove that this was one continuous combustion
| reaction? They can show beyond reasonable doubt that,
| despite the observations of the fire going out that
| convinced a team of firefighting professionals that it had
| stopped, it in fact continued and nothing else ignited a
| new fire in this location where fires naturally occur?
| dabinat wrote:
| They are not (yet) charging him with the deaths, only the fire
| damage.
| evan_ wrote:
| If they get a conviction in this case they will use that to
| support murder charges. The arson charges are easier to
| prosecute and try and if he's convicted it will make the other
| case simpler.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Hmmm.
|
| I have a "saved" history in Google Gemini. The reason I put
| "saved" in scare quotes is that Google feels free to change the
| parts of that history that were supplied by Gemini. They no
| longer match my external records of what was said.
|
| Does ChatGPT do the same thing? I'd be queasy about relying on
| this as evidence.
| x______________ wrote:
| Could you post some details about this or make a write-up? I'd
| be interested in reading more about this.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I'm not sure what details would add. What happened:
|
| 1. I engaged with Gemini.
|
| 2. I found the results wanting, and pasted them into comment
| threads elsewhere on the internet, observing that they tended
| to support the common criticism of LLMs as being "meaning-
| blind".
|
| 3. Later, I went back and viewed the "history" of my "saved"
| session.
|
| 4. My prompts were not changed, but the responses from Gemini
| were different. Because of the comment threads, it was easy
| for me to verify that I was remembering the original exchange
| correctly and Google was indulging in some revision of
| history.
| kshacker wrote:
| Not trying to excuse google but wonder why that happens. I
| have had my own issues with ChatGPT memory but that's more
| like it forgets the context and spits out something
| gibberish at a later invocation counter to what it said
| earlier in the thread. But that's because it is buggy.
|
| Rewriting history requires computes which is more
| malicious. Why would someone burn compute to rewrite your
| stuff given that rewrites are not free? Once again not
| defending google trying to think through what's going on.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| My best guess is that when they changed the model backing
| "Gemini" they regenerated the conversations.
|
| I can't think of any reason it would make sense to do
| that, though.
| jonbiggums22 wrote:
| Maybe they use some kind of response caching to save
| resources and the original pointer is now pointing to a
| newer response to the same question? Still would be an
| insane way to do that for a history log unless they're
| trying to memory hole previous instances of past poor
| performances or wrong think.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| The fact that this happened and that you have evidence of
| it make it enormously interesting even if the actual
| substance of the prompts and the response are mundane as
| hell. Please post.
| crazygringo wrote:
| If this is verifiably true, you should contact a
| journalist. Meaning if it's still in your Gemini history
| and the comments you posted are still up.
|
| This would be a major tech news story. "Google LLM
| rewriting user history" would be a scandal. And since
| online evidence is used in court, it could have significant
| legal implications. You'd be helping people.
|
| This is much too important to merely be a comment on HN.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| ChatGPT will generate output and immediately censor it if some
| oversight code deems it problematic. Ask about court decisions
| in sex crime cases without being creepy and you can see it in
| action.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Can't wait for the "Did ChatGPT Burn Down Palisades?" headline.
| bn-l wrote:
| "He's called the AOL killer and he's using something called
| 'chatrooms' to lure people in. Tonight, the dark side of
| cyberspace."
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I don't get these people. I get nervous to type even something
| like "why in movies people throw up after killing someone" in
| Google, even in incognito mode. Why would anyone put something
| even remotely incriminating into the hands of another company?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| If anyone's wonder if this guy was really the cause of the
| Palisade's fire: No, probably not. His reportedly erratic and
| eccentric behavior tells me he's probably not mentally capable of
| standing trial. Normally the government would just shrug, call it
| an act of nature, and move on. But for some reason they're going
| out of their way to pin this fire on someone.
| ghtbircshotbe wrote:
| I don't know how they would establish causality (for the major
| fire and deaths) beyond a reasonable doubt when the fire he set
| was seemingly put out and the entire region is a tinderbox.
| Whatever his crimes, he seems like a convenient scapegoat for
| larger systemic failures.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| If I can tin-foil-hat a bit, wouldn't it make sense if ruling
| the fire an act of arson would be favorable to someone with
| power, such as the Malibu landowners or the insurance
| companies? If anyone wants to "cui bono" their way to an
| article about it I'd be interesting in reading that.
| labrador wrote:
| "Sam Altman warns there's no legal confidentiality when using
| ChatGPT as a therapist"
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/25/sam-altman-warns-theres-no...
| datahiker101 wrote:
| Remember folks, your AI chats are like text messages, they're not
| private diaries.
| nusl wrote:
| Strange. The article says that he made the fire, called first
| responders, who put the fire out. The fire continued to smolder
| before reigniting in later winds.
|
| If you cause a problem, report it, then the authorities
| responsible for dealing with those problems take care of it and
| go home, what does it mean?
|
| Are the authorities then partially responsible for not ensuring
| the fire was put out properly before leaving the area?
|
| Is he even guilty at all given that he filled his duty and
| reported the problem after unintentionally causing it?
| pie_flavor wrote:
| This all hinges on the word 'unintentionally', which is not at
| all how the law sees it. Arson has a forty year maximum for a
| _good reason_ , because fire tends to spread and cause a lot
| more damage than anyone predicted. You are not exonerated of
| responsibility just because emergency services showed up. You
| are, to a first approximation, responsible for _all damage
| done_.
| bdowling wrote:
| Arson is also an inherently dangerous felony, which is why
| when someone dies because of arson, the arsonist can be
| charged with murder.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| I'd imagine manslaughter would be more applicable in the
| situation above.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The requirement for murder is typically: 1) You intended
| serious harm to a person 2) The person died. So yeah, "I
| wanted to start a big fire" != "Intent of serious harm".
| Negligent sure, but that's not enough for Murder.
|
| However many US states have a "felony murder rule" which
| as I understand it says if you did something that
| resulted in death, and it was in the course of a felony
| then it can be tried as murder. Most of them rule out
| some felonies (felony assault + death => murder is a
| stupid way to apply such a rule and so is usually ruled
| out) and some only rule in a handful like rape and prison
| escapes, but felony arson + death => murder might play.
| btilly wrote:
| Not according most states.
|
| The distinction between murder and manslaughter is malice
| aforethought. For first degree murder, you must have
| intended the death of a particular person. For second
| degree murder, you need only have known that you could
| kill someone, and did it anyways. This specifically
| includes things done with extreme recklessness.
|
| So to prove second degree murder you need to show 1) you
| intentionally did something, 2) you knew (or should have
| known) it could kill someone, and 3) someone died.
|
| These can be proven for arson. You have to prove the
| intent to start the forest fire. Everyone knows (or
| should know) that forest fires can kill people. You have
| to prove that someone died from the fire.
|
| That is why arson qualifies as second degree murder. Just
| like, say, failing to maintain the brakes on a fleet of
| trucks. (True story. My nephew was the unlucky driver of
| such a truck whose brakes failed...)
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The felony murder rule completely sidesteps this. For
| felony murder, all the prosecution needs to establish is
| 1) you committed a listed felony (arson is included) and
| 2) someone died because of your actions.
|
| The textbook example is running someone over while
| fleeing the scene of a robbery. You didn't have mens rea
| for murder, the crime you intended to commit was robbery.
| But you _chose_ to commit a felony, and someone did die
| because of it. Not only that, it 's potentially capital
| murder, because it was for financial gain (Newsom put a
| moratorium on felony murder death sentences, so that's
| not a thing at the moment).
| btilly wrote:
| Many crimes violate the law in multiple ways. Arson can
| be charged as both a felony murder and a second degree
| murder.
|
| It is easier to prove the felony murder. Was it on the
| list of felonies? To prove the second degree murder, you
| have to demonstrate "extreme recklessness". Prosecutors
| will often pile up multiple charges like this. To give
| the jury as many options as possible to convict.
|
| I'm not a lawyer. But in this case the fact that he
| called emergency services could be evidence against
| extreme recklessness, and therefore second degree murder.
| But felony murder still fits.
| btilly wrote:
| The distinction between manslaughter and second degree
| murder isn't the intent to see someone die, it is the
| intent to do the possibly lethal thing.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| That's really clearly put.
| Spivak wrote:
| To add to this, even the government isn't sure they can get the
| case that he intentionally / maliciously started the fire to
| stick which is why their official complaint is going for
| recklessness / negligence.
|
| The case for malicious intent is extremely flimsy and based
| entirely on circumstantial evidence. The strongest piece of
| evidence they have for arson is that he threatened to burn down
| his sister's house but here's the thing, it would be extremely
| unusual for an arsonist to switch from targeted arson based on
| anger or revenge to thrill seeking arson setting unmotivated
| fires.
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| >it would be extremely unusual for an arsonist to switch from
| targeted arson based on anger or revenge to thrill seeking
| arson setting unmotivated fires
|
| This is all pet theories and silliness for purposes of
| discussion. I freely admit that I haven't built a case here
| that's strong enough to withstand even a gentle poking by an
| opponent.
|
| I don't know as much about arson but I did go through the
| same serial killer phase as every morose teen and one of the
| things that stuck with me is the way that some offenders
| escalate from simple peeping and stalking all the way up to
| murder. Another thing that stuck with me is how in some cases
| when there is an intended victim, esp for revenge, an
| obsessed mind will often hone in on a single characteristic
| of the intended victim then transfer victimhood to strangers
| based on that characteristic. The woman who "wronged" you is
| a skinny blonde who smokes cigarettes so you go out looking
| for skinny blondes who smoke cigarettes to victimize in her
| stead because in your unconscious brain that matches the
| pattern of behavior that would soothe the wounded entitlement
| of the offender. Given these facts about the nature of
| obsessive, vengeance-oriented crime and the fact that the
| serial killer/arsonist crossover is so common that arson is
| one of the mcdonald triad of behaviors common to serial
| killers there's a non-zero possibility that we're seeing a
| revenge fantasy transferred to another victim. There's also
| the fact that obsessed criminals tend to want to roleplay or
| practice and a lot of times their first "serious" crime is
| one of these roleplay/practice sessions getting out of
| control. This feels like that to me though I can't prove it.
| It's like he wanted to see what starting a fire would be
| like, assumed that the local VFD would get it under control
| and in doing so would also give him an idea of what the
| response looked like so he could optimize for escape, then
| either it got out of control or he tried to inject himself
| into the emergency response (another common thing among
| obsessed criminals, many like to relive the crime by being
| part of the investigation, like to tease investigators by
| being right under their nose or believe that by injecting
| themselves into the investigation they can steer it away from
| them).
|
| Again, does any of this hold up in a court of law? Of course
| not. Does it hold up in a court of a thread on a post on HN?
| Maybe, we're here to talk and I'm of a mind that we didn't do
| anything to fix w/e it was that made people serial killers
| but there aren't really any serial killers anymore so
| something must have happened to that behavior. Perhaps
| stranger arson is a way that the same drivers that led to
| serial murder before the ~~panopticon~~internet are driving
| new behaviors now. Intuitively I'm highly confident that the
| stranger spree killings we see now are driven by those same
| pressures in a lot of perpetrators and the change in MO is
| about taking advantage of lag time in law enforcement's
| ability to correlate facts. Before the internet you could
| drive a few hours' down the road and start using a new name
| and unless your old name was already in the system there was
| basically no way for anyone to know. Obsessed criminals could
| offend, disappear and wait it out. Nowadays we're really good
| at ID'ing an offender so obsessive murders have to be one and
| done, but another strategy could be crimes that are small
| enough that they don't trigger the kind of dragnet response
| that involves things like checking all the CCTV cameras in a
| ten mile circle around the crime and things like that.
|
| edit: everyone seems focused on the "serial killer phase"
| line that was really intended to be a throwaway. I just mean
| that I read a lot about them and thought it was shocking and
| cool to have a "favorite". Gross shit, but I assure you no
| one was ever in any amount of physical or psychic danger
| beyond declaring me a pizza cutter (all edge and no real
| point).
| kaikai wrote:
| > I did go through the same serial killer phase as every
| morose teen
|
| I'm sorry, what? As a former morose teen, I can assure you
| that a "serial killer phase" is not a universal experience
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| That line read weird to me too, but I think GP meant an
| interest in true crime documentaries.
| iamnothere wrote:
| I'm not sure, most of the people I know who like true
| crime/murder porn are not exactly "morose". (But I do
| find their interest unsettling.)
|
| When I was a kid, some teens who were into darker themes
| (not all but definitely some) had a phase where they were
| interested in serial killers. It always struck me more as
| shallow "edgy teen" posturing than anything else. After
| Columbine this demographic moved on to other interests,
| as even a performative interest in real-world violence
| could lead to official harassment.
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| > It always struck me more as shallow "edgy teen"
| posturing than anything else
|
| Comment OP here: it was exactly this; the safest, most
| boring possible way to be transgressive. I didn't talk
| about it as much as other kids who were like this, so I
| didn't have to stop once people started to actually
| care/respond, but I did go from keeping my Harold
| Schechter books on my bookshelf to in a special box in my
| closet. Merely knowing about these things gave me a
| little secret thrill like I was some sort of badass with
| extreme psychic warding able to go into some secret space
| that most people couldn't stand. In reality I was just
| desensitized cuz abusive mom and I'm really glad I grew
| out of it before I got to the part some kids get to where
| learning isn't enough and they start experimenting.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > I did go through the same serial killer phase as every
| morose teen
|
| I had unmedicated bipolar 1 as a teenager. If anyone was
| going to go through a serial killer phase I would have.
|
| Even as an adult I had some pretty bad episodes prior to
| being diagnosed early thirties. My brain went some pretty
| bad, dark places but it never went to serial killer.
|
| I can only hope that you're mistaken on what a serial
| killer actually is. Mass murderer and spree killing,
| depraved as they are, have motives that are recognizable by
| the average person. Serial killer is a special kind of
| insanity.
| fwip wrote:
| I think they meant "interested in serial killers," not
| "likely to become a serial killer."
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| That would make a lot more sense. I was raised on Law and
| Order: SVU. I don't think I've ever stopped being
| interested...
| iamnothere wrote:
| > I'm of a mind that we didn't do anything to fix w/e it
| was that made people serial killers
|
| The end of leaded gasoline may play a significant role.
| And/or a reduction in other chemical hazards. Violence was
| already declining pre-panopticon.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that lead has
| caused a lot of issues in our society including some
| amount of criminality, but it's worth noting that Bentham
| coined the idea of the panopticon in the 18th century,
| and Focault and Deleuze were both talking about it as
| though it already existed by the 1970s. The panopticon
| has certainly grown into its paws since then, but the
| idea of a society where anyone could be under
| surveillance and therefore where everyone would always
| act as though they're under surveillance is older than
| the lead ban. The article you link to even references
| Levitt and Donohoe attributing some of the crime drop to
| increased police presence, which is the kind of
| surveillance that a lower tech society could use to
| implement the panopticon. You'll get no argument from me
| that it's several orders of magnitude more efficient now
| than it was in the 90s, but it was developing before the
| ban on lead in gasoline if we use that as our arbitrary
| line in the sand between pre- and post-lead eras.
|
| You did, however, allude to one of my favorite facts
| about violent crime in America: far from being a cause of
| violent crime, the rise of violent video games has been
| correlated with the most dramatic drop in crime in all of
| recorded history. That's right y'all, it's at least
| arguable that not only did Doom not inspire violence, it
| may have actually made us safer.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > were both talking about it as though it already existed
| by the 1970s.
|
| Electronic data brokers started in the 1950s. The early
| decades were less insidious but the box was opened.
| Invasive government electronic surveillance started
| before Google was founded.
| kodt wrote:
| Isn't lighting any fire in the woods during dry conditions
| inherently malicious?
| stuffn wrote:
| A hot exhaust could cause a fire in the woods during dry
| conditions. Would you consider this malicious behavior if
| you idled your car to take a photo and something smoldered
| you didn't notice? Negligent perhaps, but malicious?
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| two things:
|
| 1) this whole case hinges on intentionality and the gov't
| intends to prove that he set the fire intentionally. part of
| the chatgpt history is images he generated of fires and people
| running from fires. If he intentionally set a fire in a
| wildfire-prone area it doesn't matter that he didn't intend it
| to be a wildfire or anything he did after he set the fire.
|
| 2) If you'd like to have emergency services that are either
| prohibitively expensive or simply nonexistent, one great way to
| do that is to make first responders responsible for not doing a
| good enough job in their responses. I'm honestly not sure what
| we'd do in cases of blatantly neglectful behavior by a first
| responder during an emergency response, but beyond intentional
| malpractice we generally extend an assumption of good faith to
| anyone who bothers to show up and help during an emergency like
| this. The first time I get sued for not putting a fire out fast
| enough or completely enough is the last time I put out a fire.
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| I mean everyone sees this stuff differently. In my opinion
| everyone is allowed to carry a gun (above 18, not crazy,
| etc..). If you take a loaded gun and aim it at someones head
| and force them to empty a cash register into a bag, I
| personally believe that person should NEVER be allowed in
| society ever again in their lifetime. (Yeah that's not how it
| all works). But you were willing to let that person be within
| strands of their life not existing. If they reacted in the
| wrong way - not even intentionally, the gunman will shoot. If
| they try to fight back because they didn't agree to empty the
| cash register, the gunman shoots.
|
| That's an extreme situation that the gunman put someone in.
| Imagine it being YOU. Now if you could be the LAST person that
| gunman ever put in that situation, would you allow them to go
| to jail forever? Because if that's the case, the number of
| people in that situation ever again goes from millions to a few
| thousand over the next 1000 years. And many of those people
| will REACT and die.
|
| So when someone starts a fire, they were like the gunman. They
| were willing to let a lot of people die. Then realizing they
| were wrong, calling the cops, and having them put the fire out,
| that's the same as the situation as going into 7-11 and aiming
| the gun, but then putting it down and walking out. But they
| still risked someone else's life! What if they accidentally
| slipped their finger? Employee DEAD.
|
| So it's really the same thing. All that being said, I do grant
| that the waters are muddied at this point with the legal
| system. The person still deserves to be separated from civil
| society. He is not CIVIL!
|
| And even though the legal system's waters are muddied, his
| original actions resulted in 12 people dying. The firefighters
| that were incompetent are not originally responsible for those
| 12 deaths.
|
| The reason I want maximum punishment is that it works, it does
| deter. In this legal system of course there's a 50/50 those 12
| people will have died without being avenged at all (and their
| families - all that are affected), and a 90% chance (if he is
| found responsible) those 12 people will get this guy in jail
| for 10 years. And because of those chances, people decide, that
| fuck even if I'm caught, it seems like in the last 10 years
| there is a VERY low chance of punishment. Punishment is very
| important in this world and life. I'm not talking about capital
| punishment.
|
| A lot of people disagree with all of this, I personally think
| they have suicidal empathy. They have no empathy to the
| thousands of people that died from other peoples intentional
| actions - actions those people KNEW they might end up killing.
| They have too much empathy for the attacker. It's massive
| victim blaming.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| People aren't robots that think through every single
| decision. Arson happens frequently and nobody dies. Death is
| a rare consequence and the arsonist didn't intend to kill
| someone, it feels like an accident, not murder.
|
| This is how humans work. We work on probability and
| approximation. We often act based the consequences of our
| intentions, not the consequences of our actions.
|
| Someone that learns the consequences of their actions,
| regrets the harm they inflicted, and changes their behavior
| as a result, is not the same danger to society they were
| before. In fact society would be better off reintegrating
| them because they'll tell others not to do the same thing.
|
| I'm not exactly sure where to fit this in, but people change.
| A society that makes vengeance the only rule, where death is
| punished with death, regardless of a person's intentions, is
| an authoritarian nightmare.
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| You're thinking on an individual level. What happens at a
| societal level. Crime goes down!
|
| Also, an accident is if a party had fireworks and the fire
| got out of control. Arson is definitely not an accident if
| someone dies.
|
| Regarding "people change" argument. I'm not advocating for
| the death penalty. I'm advocating that we separate non-
| civil and civil society. If that takes the shape of the
| next Australia? Sure, then if someone changes, they're not
| in jail.
|
| I'm also not advocating for someone non-violently stealing
| bread to be separated from society. Those people can
| change.
|
| Someone that at one moment of their life decides that
| someone else's is worthless because they want the contents
| of a cash register? Remove them from civil society.
| ShrimpHawk wrote:
| > The reason I want maximum punishment is that it works, it
| does deter
|
| People disagree with you not of opinion but because you are
| factually wrong.
|
| "Evidence shows lengthy prison terms do not have a
| significant deterrent effect on crime"
| https://ccla.org/criminal-justice/no-longer-prison-
| sentences...
|
| "Research Shows That Long Prison Sentences Don't Actually
| Improve Safety" https://www.vera.org/news/research-shows-
| that-long-prison-se...
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| most of this research is fake you know.
|
| For example this was going around for a long time:
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-
| opinion/debu...
|
| Then this happened in 2025 when there was a crack-down on
| crime:
|
| https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-
| year-...
|
| Also, 1% of the population is responsible for most of the
| crime
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/
|
| So if you end up jailing people, the crime just goes down.
|
| Also, then if that's true, then cancel all murder prison
| sentences!
| drdaeman wrote:
| I don't understand the argument here. Both can be true,
| as those two statements don't really conflict:
|
| 1. Longer sentences could have no effect on crime rates.
|
| 2. Persecuting people for crimes lowers crime rates.
|
| Honestly, to me it reads as "law enforcement is a good
| idea, prolonged incarceration is questionable".
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| I'm too lazy/busy right now to get you effective links
| (debugging a database migration right now) but Google AI
| said this:
|
| Reported effects of CECOT on crime
|
| Reduction in crime rates
|
| Since Bukele declared a state of emergency in March 2022
| and began mass arrests, El Salvador's crime rates have
| plummeted. Homicide rate decline: The
| country's homicide rate fell from 103 per 100,000 people
| in 2015 to just 1.9 per 100,000 in 2024, one of the most
| drastic reductions in recent history. Increased
| public safety: Many Salvadorans, long subjected to
| extortion and violence by powerful gangs, report feeling
| much safer on the streets.
|
| A large part of Cecot is the idea of "permanent prison".
| I would say your entire argument is completely debunked.
| dabinat wrote:
| Your argument only covers a three year period. How does
| that prove that long prison sentences reduce crime?
| e40 wrote:
| The controlled burn in 1991 turned into the firestorm of 1991
| that took out almost 3,000 homes and killed 25.
|
| It seems firefighters are not conservative enough when it comes
| to putting out fires, at least in these 2 cases.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991
| zymhan wrote:
| Odd conclusion to draw from only two data points over 30
| years apart.
| rank0 wrote:
| I would like to know if OpenAI is able to supply this information
| to law enforcement even if their user's history has been cleared.
| maples37 wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe that deleting a ChatGPT
| conversation is anything more than "UPDATE conversations SET
| status='user_deleted WHERE conversation_id=..."?
| rank0 wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, I am highly skeptical. I also am
| genuinely curious because it seems to be in their best
| interest to delete these records for a few reasons:
|
| 1. Adherence to their own customer-facing policy. 2.
| Corporate or government customers would CERTAINLY want their
| data handling requirements to be respected. 3. In my
| experience at $MEGA_CORP, we absolutely delete customer data
| or never maintain logs at all for ML inference products. 4.
| They're a corporation with explicit goal of making money.
| They're not interested in assisting LE beyond minimum legal
| requirements.
|
| But still I wonder what the reality is at OpenAI.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _They're a corporation with explicit goal of making
| money. They're not interested in assisting LE beyond
| minimum legal requirements._
|
| Having a good relation with LE and the state is beneficial
| to companies, it puts them in a good position to sell them
| services, get preferential treatment, quid pro quo, etc.
|
| Look at how Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc cozied up to LE
| and the government. They get billion dollar contracts,
| partnerships with LE and the more they cooperate willingly,
| the less likely they'll be sued into cooperation or
| punished with loss of contracts.
| exabrial wrote:
| All I can say is GOOD.
|
| If a person is suspected of committing a crime, and police obtain
| a specific, pointed, warrant for information pertaining to an
| individual, tech companies have a moral obligation to comply, in
| the best interests of humanity.
|
| If law enforcement or spy agency asked for a dragnet warrant like
| "find me all of the people that might be guilty of XYZ" or "find
| me something this individual might be guilty of"; tech companies
| have a moral obligation to resist, in the best interest of
| humanity.
|
| The first is an example of the justice system working correctly
| in a free society; the second is an example of totalitarian
| government seeking to frame individuals.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > the Justice Department's allegations against Rinderknecht are
| supported by evidence found on his phone
|
| Sounds like they got the info from his phone, not taken from
| any servers, so this is likely not an example of a tech company
| "complying".
| bitpush wrote:
| How do you square this with Apple's pushback few years back
| against FBI who asked for a specific individual's details.
|
| I'm not taking sides, but it sounds like if ChatGPT cooperating
| with LE is a Good Thing (TM), then Apple making a public
| spectacle of how they are not going to cooperate is .. bad?
|
| I'm fully aware that Apple _might_ not even be able to provide
| them the information, which is a separate conversation.
| closetohome wrote:
| The difference is that in this case OpenAI was able to
| produce the requested information without compromising
| security for their other customers.
| SilasX wrote:
| Right, for the OpenAI case to be analogous, they would have
| to switch to a system where your chats are homomorphically
| encrypted -- i.e. OpenAI does all its operations without
| knowing either the input or output plaintext. In that case,
| they'd only have encrypted chats to begin with, and would
| have to somehow get your key to comply with a warrant for
| the plaintext.
|
| And note: the above scenario is not likely anywhere in the
| near future, because homomorphic encryption has something
| like a million times overhead, and requires you to hit the
| entire database on every request, when state-of-the-art LLM
| systems are already pushing the limits of computation.
| exabrial wrote:
| With my current knowledge of the case, I'd say Apple was
| clearly in the moral wrong and it's a pretty dark mark in
| their past.
|
| My understanding is the suspect was detained and law
| enforcement was not asking for a dragnet (at least thats what
| they stated publicly), and they were asking for a tool for a
| specific phone. Apple stated the FBI was asking them to
| backdoor in all iPhones, then the FBI countered and said
| thats not what they were asking for. Apple then marched
| triumphantly into the moral sunset over the innocent
| victims'; meanwhile the FBI then send funds to a dubious
| group with questionable ethics and ties to authoritarian
| regimes.
|
| In my opinion, Apple should have expediently helped here, if
| for no other reason than to prevent the funding of groups
| that support dragnets, but also out of moral obligation to
| the victims.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Are you certain Apple _could_ unlock this phone (short of
| making a software change that compromised all iPhones)?
| exabrial wrote:
| I make no claim either way nor do I have insider
| knowledge of what they could and could not do.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Neither do I have inside knowledge.
|
| Instead I am only aware from what has been published that
| there is the so-called "Secure Enclave" chip in the
| iPhone hardware manifest that will only give up its
| secrets to a biometric match, or a user password. That
| would seem to leave Apple's hands tied?
| ribosometronome wrote:
| And why would it matter? Even if the capability to create
| a magic key that unlocked a specific phone remained
| entirely within a company's hands for future use, why
| wouldn't the courts just continue to ask them to use it?
| It's not like the victims of all sorts of other crimes
| don't have similar don't similarly deserve justice.
|
| Law enforcement at the time was even admitting (which
| we'd later find out to be correct) that there likely was
| nothing of value on the phone. It seems fairly obvious
| that the FBI was trying to use a high profile case to
| force a paradigm shift. Perhaps we can argue it'd be a
| good and just one, but arguing that they weren't seems
| not right.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| Apple said they could do it. And they didn't tell the FBI
| they can't do it, they said they don't want to.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Seeing how strained your good-faith interpretation is has
| further entrenched my belief that San Bernadino was a false
| flag operation by the FBI.
|
| There is no world in which a post-PRISM compliant Apple
| cannot be coerced by the feds for an investigation. It's
| just a matter of how much pressure the FBI wanted to apply;
| Apple's colossal marketing win is the sort of thing that
| you would invent if you wanted to manufacture consumer
| trust, not "prove" anything to cryptographers. Playing
| devil's advocate, "authoritarian regimes" are exactly the
| sort of place you _would_ send the iPhone to if you already
| had the information and wanted to pretend like it was hard
| to access.
|
| If we assume a _worst-case-scenario_ where Apple was
| already under coercion by the FBI, _everything_ they did
| covers up any potential wrongdoing. It was all talk, no
| walk. Neither side had to show any accountability, and
| everyone can go on happily using their devices for private
| purposes.
| gruez wrote:
| >How do you square this with Apple's pushback few years back
| against FBI who asked for a specific individual's details.
|
| See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encrypti
| on_d...
|
| >Most of these seek to compel Apple "to use its existing
| capabilities to extract data like contacts, photos and calls
| from locked iPhones running on operating systems iOS 7 and
| older" in order to assist in criminal investigations and
| prosecutions. A few requests, however, involve phones with
| more extensive security protections, which Apple has no
| current ability to break. These orders would compel Apple to
| write new software that would let the government bypass these
| devices' security and unlock the phones.[3]
|
| That's much more different than OpenAI dumping some rows from
| their database. If chatgpt was end-to-end encrypted and they
| wanted OpenAI to backdoor their app I would be equally
| opposed.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Interesting that it wound up not being Cellebrite, I
| thought for years it was, I wonder if Cellebrite had people
| lie to the press that it was them. Really effective
| marketing.
|
| I agree, the line is at messing with End to End Encryption.
| If your E2EE has a backdoor ITS NOT END TO END ENCRYPTION.
| Thanks.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| It's not exactly E2EE. iPhone storage is locked with a
| 6-digit numeric passcode in most cases, which is
| basically no entropy. The whole thing relies on hardware
| security (the enclave). At least in older phones, that
| just meant security through obscurity since Apple's trade
| secrets were enough to unlock it, but maybe newer ones
| can't be unlocked even by Apple.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| With CALEA and related laws, companies that don't keep logs
| can be compelled to surveil certain users from that point
| forward, even if that means installing hardware/software
| that keeps logs on them.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| Yes. I'm glad the FBI was able to crack the phone without
| Apple's help in that San Bernardino case, which humiliated
| Apple as a little bonus.
|
| Apple also tried to freak the public out saying the FBI
| wanted a backdoor added, which was inaccurate. You can't
| retroactively add a backdoor, that's the whole point of it.
| FBI wanted Apple to unlock a specific phone, which Apple said
| they were capable of doing already.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Does this imply that the tech company has the moral obligation
| to evaluate the merits of each warrant on a case-by-case basis?
| exabrial wrote:
| They should resist fishing expeditions. I don't think thats
| that hard.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Is that only a function of the number of individuals
| targeted by a group of warrants? What determines "group
| membership" of a warrant? It seems like it actually is hard
| to determine, both for the legal system (there are many
| controversies in the U.S. about whether dragnet warrants
| are constitutional and what constitutes a dragnet warrant)
| and for a company receiving these warrants.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Not good. These tools (from search engines to AI) are
| increasingly part of our brains, and we should have
| confidentiality in using them. I already think too much about
| everything I put into ChatGPT, since my default assumption is
| it will all be made public. Now I also have to consider the
| possibility that random discussions will be used against me and
| taken out of context if I'm ever accused of committing a crime.
| (Like all the weird questions I ask about anonymous
| communications and encryption!) So everything I do with these
| tools will be with an eye towards the fact that it's all
| preserved and I'll have to explain it, which has a huge
| chilling effect on using the system. Just make it easy for me
| not to log history.
| hdseggbj wrote:
| Just give the ai to user relationship a protection like
| attorney client privilege.
|
| Edit: ai has already passed the bar exam.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It only "passes the bar exam" when AI, or some other flawed
| process, is the examiner. See e.g.
| https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-024-09396-9 for a debunk.
| hdseggbj wrote:
| That's not a debunk. "Calls into question" does not equal
| "in truth, it failed the exam. "
| hluska wrote:
| No, it's a debunk. ChatGPT-4 scored in the 48th
| percentile (15th percentile in essays) amongst
| individuals that passed the bar exam. That's very poor
| performance.
| hdseggbj wrote:
| Thus it scored higher than almost half the humans who
| _passed_ the test. In other words it too passed the bar.
| hluska wrote:
| Attorney-client privilege has limits. For obvious reasons I
| haven't read any affidavits associated with the warrant,
| but it sure sounds like this would fall outside the bounds
| of attorney-client privilege.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| With an attorney you have a clear sense of when you pass
| outside of that privilege. With a friend or colleague you
| have a social sense of what's going to remain
| confidential, plus memories aren't perfect. "Preserving,
| recording and reporting every word" is not the same as
| any of these things. This cannot be the world we all have
| to live in going forward; it's not safe or healthy.
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| Seems natural to extend privilege here. People are using it
| as a therapist.
| Topfi wrote:
| There are a lot of counterarguments I could bring up, but
| just of the top, plainly, just because people use LLMs as
| therapists, lawyers, doctors, deities, doesn't make LLMs
| such.
|
| My personal believes (we should not rely on models for
| such things at this stage, let's not anthropomorphize,
| etc.) to one side, let me ask, do you think if I used my
| friend Steve, who is not a lawyer but sounds very
| convincingly like one, to advice me on a legal dispute,
| that should be covered by attorney client privilege?
|
| Cause, even given the scenario that LLMs suddenly become
| perfectly reliable enough to verifiably carry out
| legal/medical/etc. services to a point where they can
| actually be accepted into day-to-day practice by actual
| professionals and the companies are willing to take on
| the financial risks of any malpractice for using their
| models in such areas (as part of enterprise offerings for
| an extra fee of course), that still wouldn't and
| shouldn't mean that your run-of-the-mill private ChatGPT
| instance has the same privileges or protections that we
| afford to e.g. patient data when handled digitally as
| part of medical practice. At best (again, I dislike
| anthropomorphizing models, but it is easier to talk about
| such a scenario this way), a hypothetical ChatGPT that
| provides 100% accurate legal information would be akin to
| a private person who just happens to know a lot about the
| law, but never got accredited and does not have the same
| responsibilities.
|
| Again though, we are far from that hypothetical anyways,
| "people" using LLMs that way does not change this fact. I
| know, unfortunately, there are people who are convinced
| that current day LLMs have already attain Godhood and are
| merely biding their time and that doesn't become real
| either, just because they act according to their
| assumptions.
|
| I really struggle to understand, nor do I see any cogent
| arguments across this comment section why current day
| LLMs in such a scenario should be treated differently to
| e.g. a PKM software or cloud hosted diary and afforded
| the same legal protections (or lack thereof depending on
| viewpoint, personal stance and your local data privacy
| laws).
| hdseggbj wrote:
| You'll find these laws privileging certain folks are
| contoured and controlled by the individuals who have
| already been granted such privilege to discourage and
| limit competition. Not because it's good in any way for
| the client.
|
| Protectionism hurts all of society to benefit a few.
| Topfi wrote:
| Perhaps this is a language barrier, but I genuinely do
| not understand what is meant by this. Like, what does
| this have to do with protectionism, who are the "folks"
| in this case, etc. Honestly asking.
| hdseggbj wrote:
| Doctors control who can be a doctor, what is required to
| be a doctor, what doctors can and can't do, and that
| people are forced to go to them for Healthcare ... all to
| protect their personal income. Not to better Healthcare.
| Not to expand access to Healthcare. But precisely to make
| it cost more to get. They are hurting society to benefit
| themselves.
|
| Milton Friedman explains it to doctors here:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ss5PxPlnmFk
| VHRanger wrote:
| > Not good. These tools (from search engines to AI) are
| increasingly part of our brains, and we should have
| confidentiality in using them.
|
| Don't expect that from products with advertising business
| models
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| OpenAI and Anthropic do not have advertising business
| models
| bigyabai wrote:
| If you're not the customer, you're most likely the
| product.
| bbor wrote:
| I love the saying, but there's something of an exception
| here. Both companies very openly have _singularity_
| business models.
| nemomarx wrote:
| yet, but surely they will move that way over time?
| achierius wrote:
| OpenAI is clearly moving in that direction, look at their
| recent verbiage and hiring.
| scotty79 wrote:
| yet
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| name a similar sized tech company that hasn't
| hluska wrote:
| Serious question. Why should someone have more privacy in a
| software system than they do within their home?
| eqvinox wrote:
| They maybe (not taking a stance) shouldn't, but I don't
| think this argument is as simple as one thinks. Doing
| surveillance on someone's home generally requires a court
| order _beforehand_. And depending on the country (I don 't
| believe this applies to the US), words spoken at home also
| enjoy extended legal protection, i.e. they can't subpoena a
| friend you had a discussion with.
|
| Now the real question is, do you consider it a conversation
| or a letter. Any _opened_ 1 letters you have lying around
| at home can be grabbed with a court-ordered search warrant.
| But a conversation--you might need the warrant beforehand?
| It's tricky.
|
| (Again, exact legal situation depends on the country.)
|
| 1 Secrecy of correspondence frequently only applies to
| letters in _sealed envelopes_. But then you can get another
| warrant for the correspondence...
| Topfi wrote:
| Honest question, why consider the personal home, letters
| or spoken words at all, considering most countries around
| the world already have ample and far more applicable
| laws/precedent for cloud hosted private documents?
|
| For the LLM input, that maps 1:1 to documents a person
| has written and uploaded to cloud storage. And I don't
| see how generated output could weigh into that at all.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| A simple answer to this is: I use local storage or end-
| to-end encrypted cloud backup for private stuff, and I
| don't for work stuff. And I make those decisions on a
| document-by-document basis, since I have the choice of
| using both technologies.
|
| The question you are asking is: should I approach my
| daily search tasks with the same degree of thoughtfulness
| and caution that I do with my document storage choices,
| and do I have the same options? And the answers I would
| give are:
|
| * As a consumer I _don 't_ want to have to think about
| this. I want to be able to answer some private questions
| or have conversations with a trusted confidant _without_
| those conversations being logged to my identity.
|
| * As an OpenAI executive, I would also probably _not_
| want my users to have to think about this risk, since a
| lot of the future value in AI assistants is the knowledge
| that you can trust them like members of your family. If
| OpenAI can 't provide that, something else will.
|
| * As a member of a society, I really do not love the idea
| that we're using legal standards developed for 1990s
| email to protect citizens from privacy violations
| involving technologies that can think and even testify
| against you.
| Topfi wrote:
| > [...] should I approach my daily search tasks with the
| same degree of thoughtfulness and caution that I do with
| my document storage choices [...]
|
| Then treat them with the same degree of thoughtfulness
| and caution you have treated web searches on Google,
| Bing, DuckDuckGo or Kagi for the last decade.
|
| Again, there is no confidant or entity here, no more so
| than the search algorithms we have been using for decades
| are at least.
|
| > I really do not love the idea that we're using legal
| standards developed for 1990s email to protect citizens
| [...]
|
| Fair, but again, that is in no way connected to LLMs. I
| still see no reason presented why LLM input should be
| treated any differently to cloud hosted files or web
| search requests.
|
| You want better privacy? Me too, but that is not in any
| way connected to or changed by LLMs being common place.
| Same logic I find any attempt to restrict a specific
| social media company for privacy and algorithmic concerns
| laughable, if the laws remain so that any local
| competitors are allowed to do the same invasions.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I have enormous privacy in my home. I can open up any book
| and read it with nobody logging what I read. I can destroy
| any notes I take and know they'll stay destroyed. I can
| even visit the library and do all these things in an
| environment with massive information access; only the card
| catalog usage might get logged, and I probably _still_ don
| 't have to tie usage to my identity because once upon a
| time it was totally normal to make knowledge tools
| publicly-accessible without the need for authentication
| credentials.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _These tools (from search engines to AI) are increasingly
| part of our brains, and we should have confidentiality in
| using them._
|
| But you do, just like you have confidentiality in what you
| write in your diary.
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| I think there is a non-zero chance they had no idea about
| this guy until OpenAI employees uncovered this, reported it,
| and additional cell phone data backed up the entire thing.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Why do employees need to be involved? It's AI. It is
| entirely capable of doing the surveillance, monitoring and
| reporting entirely by itself. If not now, then in the near
| future.
| stuffn wrote:
| > If law enforcement or spy agency asked for a dragnet warrant
| like "find me all of the people that might be guilty of XYZ" or
| "find me something this individual might be guilty of"; tech
| companies have a moral obligation to resist, in the best
| interest of humanity.
|
| There is more evidence they will do this rather than that they
| won't. ChatGPT is a giant dragnet and 15 years ago I would've
| argued it's probably entirely operated and funded by the NSA.
| The police already can obtain a "geofenced warrant" today.
| We're not more than one senator up for re-election from having
| a new law forced down our throat "for the children" that
| enables them to mine OpenAI data. That is, if they don't
| already have a Room 641A located in their HQ.
|
| People pour their live out into these fuzzy word predictors.
| OpenAI is holding a treasure trove of personal data,
| personality data, and other data that could be used for all
| kinds of intelligence work.
|
| This is objectively bad regardless of how bad the criminal is.
| The last near 40 years of history, and especially the post 9/11
| world, shows that if we don't stand up for these people the
| government will tread all over our most fundamental rights in
| the name of children/security/etc.
|
| Basic rights aren't determined by how "good people" use them.
| They are entirely determined by how we treat "bad people" under
| them.
| tenthirtyam wrote:
| Just wait until AI is advanced enough that you can buy an AI
| best friend who will be with you all your life. I'm reminded
| of Decker's AI hologram friend in Blade Runner 2049. The only
| thing they got wrong was she was not collecting data for the
| megacorp.
|
| Thinking again, the AI will certainly be "free".
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I don't think anyone has a moral obligation to do the state's
| bidding, and if you think these tools will only be used morally
| against "bad guys", you have not been paying attention to
| recent events.
|
| I also don't think the interests of the state are "in the best
| interests of humanity".
|
| Sometimes the price of having nice things and them remaining
| nice means that people you don't like can use them, too.
| HardCodedBias wrote:
| There are many routes that the government has to court
| order/warrant/subpoena information from tech companies.
|
| The tech companies have just about zero ability to resist.
|
| There should likely be legislation enacted that raises chat
| logs to the level of psychotherapist-patient privilege.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Administrative or judicial warrant? What if they deceived the
| judge?
| codedokode wrote:
| Not fair. It means idiots who type "how do I hide a body" get
| caught, but smart types from HN can hide their traces. In a
| fair society, both dumb and smart criminals should have equal
| chance of getting caught. Imagine, for example, if you could
| use Internet only after identification. And maybe there should
| be reduced punishment for dumb types for humanity reasons.
| fn-mote wrote:
| Absurd. Unrealistic.
|
| Does everyone have the same earnings potential risk
| regardless of their skill? Same with stealing potential.
|
| Edit: on the flip side, white collar crimes leave a paper
| trail that traditional smash and grab crimes do not, so more
| white collar criminals should be getting caught and convicted
| now.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Local LLM chat control when?
| gosub100 wrote:
| stop blaming fires on people who start them. its inevitable that
| _someone_ is going to be the root cause. meanwhile the people
| whose job it is to _manage_ the forest or wilderness areas are
| scot-free. At least send them to prison too.
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