7 ms·

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 stateme

by jampa 1y ago

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-los-angeles-deb1c78c1d83d233cf3b540644814ea2 https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-palisades-lo...

mtillman 1y ago
OpenAI also literally announced that they send data to law enforcement after a judge told them they had to do so.
- swyx 1y ago
  they HAD to? didnt Apple refuse to do this exact thing?
  - rogerrogerr 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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 1y ago
        > 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 1y ago
    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_dispute 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.
    - DevelopingElk 1y ago
      And Apple did provide all iCloud data they had available.
- kube-system 1y ago
  Every company must comply with lawful warrants and subpoenas.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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 1y ago
        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 1y ago
        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 1y ago
        Typically that would require uncovering the veil of the corporation and usually a limited company has safety provisions against these egregious acts.
quuxplusone 1y ago
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 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.)
- aydyn 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - libraryatnight 1y ago
    He donated to Biden, but had no registered party. Congrats, you're part of the insanity. I'm sort of grossed out by people trying to blame a party for this in general, though. It's weird.
    - notmyjob 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - fancyswimtime 1y ago
        I see it as simple tribalism
        newsclues 1y ago
        Tribalism yes, simple no. There is propaganda and mental health issues making this more complicated
ccppurcell 1y ago
Ok. But this serves as a reminder not to expect privacy when sending messages back and forth to some software company.
- irjustin 1y ago
  Nothing new here. Somehow people are surprised evidence against them includes - "my google search" or "my chatgpt logs" or ...
  - harvey9 1y ago
    Rolling Stone is a general audience publication so it is fair enough for some of their readers to be surprised.
  - Aerroon 1y ago
    In my opinion, people should be constantly reminded of this.
jimmySixDOF 1y ago
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 1y ago
  > 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 1y ago
  Your honor, the defendant is semantically guilty!
  - lawlessone 1y ago
    it would help indicate intention.
- jack_pp 1y ago
  You have your full history in chatgpt not just summaries and I doubt they permanently delete chats you specifically choose to delete.
  - maxbond 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    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/ 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.
Sophira 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/chatgpt-palisades-fire-suspect-1235443216/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251008204636/https://www.rolli...
- butlike 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      Unless people are primarily only reading the headlines, then it could matter.
    - LocalPCGuy 1y ago
      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)
bko 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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.
freejazz 1y ago
>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 1y ago
  In this age I'd assume the NSA already has such records.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    Not sure what that would have to do with a subpoena to OpenAI
coldtea 1y ago
>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.

by jampa 1y ago

mtillman 1y ago

OpenAI also literally announced that they send data to law enforcement after a judge told them they had to do so.

swyx 1y ago
they HAD to? didnt Apple refuse to do this exact thing?
- rogerrogerr 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      > 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 1y ago
  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_dispute 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.
  - DevelopingElk 1y ago
    And Apple did provide all iCloud data they had available.
kube-system 1y ago
Every company must comply with lawful warrants and subpoenas.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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 1y ago
        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 1y ago
        Typically that would require uncovering the veil of the corporation and usually a limited company has safety provisions against these egregious acts.

quuxplusone 1y ago

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 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.)

aydyn 1y ago
[flagged]
- libraryatnight 1y ago
  He donated to Biden, but had no registered party. Congrats, you're part of the insanity. I'm sort of grossed out by people trying to blame a party for this in general, though. It's weird.
  - notmyjob 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - fancyswimtime 1y ago
      I see it as simple tribalism
      - newsclues 1y ago
        Tribalism yes, simple no. There is propaganda and mental health issues making this more complicated

ccppurcell 1y ago

Ok. But this serves as a reminder not to expect privacy when sending messages back and forth to some software company.

irjustin 1y ago
Nothing new here. Somehow people are surprised evidence against them includes - "my google search" or "my chatgpt logs" or ...
- harvey9 1y ago
  Rolling Stone is a general audience publication so it is fair enough for some of their readers to be surprised.
- Aerroon 1y ago
  In my opinion, people should be constantly reminded of this.

jimmySixDOF 1y ago

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 1y ago
> 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 1y ago
Your honor, the defendant is semantically guilty!
- lawlessone 1y ago
  it would help indicate intention.
jack_pp 1y ago
You have your full history in chatgpt not just summaries and I doubt they permanently delete chats you specifically choose to delete.
- maxbond 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  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/ 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.

Sophira 1y ago

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 1y ago
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.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/chatgpt-palisades-fire-suspect-1235443216/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251008204636/https://www.rolli...
butlike 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    Unless people are primarily only reading the headlines, then it could matter.
  - LocalPCGuy 1y ago
    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)

bko 1y ago

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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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.

freejazz 1y ago

>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 1y ago
In this age I'd assume the NSA already has such records.
- jeffbee 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  Not sure what that would have to do with a subpoena to OpenAI

coldtea 1y ago

>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.