9 ms·

OpenAI – How to delete your account

1929 points by carlosrg 7mo ago

webdevver 7mo ago
wish oai was publicly traded so i could buy the dip on all this nonsense. the one for musk was super juicy.
- raincole 7mo ago
  It's weird to assume there would be a dip if it were publicly traded. "The company I hold just secured a government contract. Better sell it." - Imaginary Shareholder
  - stingraycharles 7mo ago
    As a matter of fact, the stock would be popping on the news that the DoD will be replacing Anthropic + Palantir with OpenAI + Palantir.
- mentalgear 7mo ago
  Great for you surfin' musk's hype wave while he turns the world into his own fascist dominion. At least you made some bucks along the way! Those come certainly in useful - albeit are quickly depleted - once you live in a totalitarian world where every interaction with the monopolistic oligarchic big-tech-state monster requires a bribe, probably in shitcoins. (see the Russian oligarchic state that the US is quickly progressing towards - apparently Russians have no word for "bribe", as it's common practice to give gov agents "gifts" if you want anything being done.)
  - zthrowaway 7mo ago
    We already live in an oligarchy. The difference between us and Russia is that their government controls the oligarchy. Here the oligarchy controls the government. Also please stop throwing around the fascist word for everything, good lord it’s tiring and cringe.
    - etyhhgfff 7mo ago
      I see a bunch of cynicism in this reply, but I guess you would argue there is none. Fair enough.
silverwind 7mo ago
Good think I never had one.
stingraycharles 7mo ago
Why, though? What, really, does anyone envision the next decade with government + AI is going to be like? Obviously mass surveillance is already happening. Obviously the line between “human kills other human” is blurring for a long time already, eg remote operated drones. Missiles are already remotely controlled and navigating and detecting and following moving targets autonomously. What’s the goal of people who think deleting their OpenAI account will make an impact?
- vee-kay 7mo ago
  AI will get access to missiles, fighter jets, attack drones, and even nuclear launch codes - that's the fear. Even when the bombs drop from the sky, at least those humans who had deleted their OpenAI account can rest easy, knowing that that they weren't the ones supporting the AI that will delete humanity.
  - stingraycharles 7mo ago
    And what if an even worse alternative becomes the AI of choice for the DoD if OpenAI didn’t get this deal?
    - tovej 7mo ago
      Then the sane thing to do is to boycott that AI provider as well. Opposing all AI companies tied to the war industry is a pretty vanilla principles stance, which also makes sense rationally if you want to "minimize harm".
    - aniviacat 7mo ago
      If the DoW had to rely on worse AI models, the process of integrating AI into their systems would be slowed down.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
    - 7mo ago
ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
Ok I'll bite: Why is this interesting? Is it because it's really difficult to delete? Or what?
- nesk_ 7mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650
  - ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
    Ah it's activism then, saying "you should delete it and here's how" Got it, thank you.
    - jdiaz97 7mo ago
      Yeah a lot of people don't like liars and warmongers. Scam Altman already got community noted on the DoW tweet for lying.
      - ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
        Ah I've been calling him Sam Conman, but Scam Altman sounds way better.
  - crazygringo 7mo ago
    Thank you. Can't believe I had to scroll this far down for context.
- ApolloFortyNine 7mo ago
  Dang must be asleep, it's a political post essentially.
hliyan 7mo ago
Even for people who intend to use it in the future, there's a way to send a message with only a 30 day hiatus: if you really want, you can recreate the account with the same email address after 30 days, withe a clean slate. I'm between a slight rock and a hard place so cannot completely get out of OAI just yet, but I can manage 30 days without it.
- nomel 7mo ago
  > there's a way to send a message with only a 30 day hiatus And that message would be "We have a product so valuable/useful that not even their weak ideals and moral obligations could keep them away!"
  - hliyan 7mo ago
    Large corporations do not, and are not able to, respond to long term signals. One month is literally a third of a corporations's attention span (a financial quarter).
    - anon_shill 7mo ago
      Ehh. In the last corporate PR nightmare I was witness to internally we absolutely tracked return subscribers in our fallout dashboard.
  - KronisLV 7mo ago
    > And that message would be "We have a product so valuable/useful that not even their weak ideals and moral obligations could keep them away!" Who knows, maybe within those 30 days you find that other offerings are good enough for your needs - I've largely moved over to Anthropic's Max subscription for all my needs, I don't even need Cerebras Coder anymore because Opus 4.6 is just so good.
- mrgordon 7mo ago
  Just use a different LLM lol. It’s not even the best one anymore
RicoElectrico 7mo ago
FYI for basic stuff you can always use duck.ai which also aggregates other models.
- mark_l_watson 7mo ago
  Duck.ai seems good, as is Proton’s Lumo.
tzahifadida 7mo ago
What about claude? Don't think they wont be used militarily that is naive...
- soulofmischief 7mo ago
  You're out of the loop and making baseless assumptions. This thread is currently trending because OpenAI just slid into the US CorpGov's DMs and signed a contract, hours after Anthropic was banned by the US government for not letting the military do whatever they want. https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://x.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070 https://x.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070
  - fnordpiglet 7mo ago
    Yeah, in fact, I’m increasing my subscription to Anthropic and decreasing to OAI. Now if there was a way to easily port conversation history between one and another I’d probably be fine with deleting OpenAI. ChatGPT has years of my and my families interactions in its history and those are mostly useless to others, but to me they’re valuable. But the knob I have is my spend, so here it goes… If OpenAI had shown any fidelity or backbone in the least, then different story. A unified industry against any one being bullied into business decisions they don’t want to make is a wall and a strengthening of competition. Now the government will use war powers to shape private industries competitive landscape and turn companies with a core business principles into tools of the state through unilateral and likely unlawful actions, and OpenAI’s first response is to grab the money and shove their competitors under the government bus. We are all much less safe, and the AI industry much much weaker as a result.
    - soulofmischief 7mo ago
      Export your data and ask Claude to shove it in a database that you can let it access anytime you want via tool calling. I agree, this could have been a moment of solidarity across the industry, an acknowledgement that we're all in this together having fun and building out intelligent systems, and instead we're seeing Sam Altman yet again for who he really is.
curtisblaine 7mo ago
[flagged]
- JasonADrury 7mo ago
  Sometimes threads are flagged, sometimes they aren't. This is how HN has always worked. For the most part it depends on the users.
xyst 7mo ago
This is what happens when a snake oil salesman like Sam Altman back door deals/sleazes his way back into a company. He is doing anything to keep Titanic from sinking. Stooping as low as catering to this garbage administration, and being used as a political pawn.
adverbly 7mo ago
Done
andela4a 7mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
mentalgear 7mo ago
Posting it here as a top-level comment as many people asked why boycott just openAi: ----- openAI is the least trustworthy of the Big LLM providers. See S(c)am Altman's track record, especially his early comments in senate hearings where: * he warned of engagement-optimisation strategies, like social media, being used for chatbots / LLMs. * also, he warned that "ads would be the last resort" for LLM companies. Both of his own warnings he casually ignored as ChatGPT / openAI has now fully converted to Facebook's tactics of "move fast and break things" - even if it is society itself. A complete turn away from the original AI for science lab it was founded as, which explains why every real (founding) ML scientist has left the company years ago. While still being for-profit outfits, at least DeepMind and Anthrophic are headed by actual scientists - not marketing guys. At least for me, that brings me some confidence in their intentions as, as scientists we often seek knowledge, not power for power's sake.
- rustyhancock 7mo ago
  Just boycott them all if you can. That's what I've done. Some people's livelihoods probably depends on Claude and they can't say use Glm4.7 on HF. Fine. But it's a moral compromise, that's life sometimes you need to compromise what you want for what you need. just don't tell yourself it's a reasonable line to hold. I can't decouple from Google unfortunately but I accept that without fooling myself into thinking "Oh but Google are fine".
  - mentalgear 7mo ago
    I agree, if you can do boycott all of them (and maybe use open weight models locally or on e2ee cloud inference providers) - BUT I also think it 's crucial at a moment like this to take a stance against corporations like openAi that sign with the War Department, willing to introduce mass surveillance and autonomous weapons powered by brittle LLMs. This is a recipe for disaster and the only way they will sway away is by feeling it in the money/subscriptions and in their public image they so carefully crafted. Note: yes, openAi claims it doesn't support the DoW above mentioned use-caes - but they have signed with the DoW and it is HIGHLY unlikely the DoW would give them a different terms than Antrohopic (at least regarding the substance). Maybe openAi was just happy with the "coat of paint" legalese the DoW offered - which Anthropic specifically called out as ineffective in their statement. I also wouldn't put it past Altman, who is much more friendly with Trumpo's gov, to play a double game here to get their main competitor out of the game. But at least in this case I hope he's acting for the benefit of all by truly standing with Anthropic on the issue.
abbadadda 7mo ago
LOL I keep getting, “ Oops, an error occurred! Too many failed attempts. Try again”… my login codes are mysteriously not working when trying to delete my OpenAI/ChatGPT account.
- itsyonas 7mo ago
  When I type in 'DELETE', the button just stays disabled for me. When I tried to make the request through their 'Privacy' portal, I receive a mysterious 'Session expired' error message, and now I've been locked out with the message 'Too many failed attempts'...
  - ayhanfuat 7mo ago
    Did you type in your email? It seems already filled in because it shows you your email address as the placeholder text but you need to fill in.
    - itsyonas 7mo ago
      Oops, my mistake. That worked. - Thanks.
  - abbadadda 7mo ago
    Probably, on the backend: “Server Error 500: Users deleting OpenAI Accounts too fast. Try again later.”
  - 0Ggr3g 7mo ago
    Make sure you enter both DELETE and your email above. It took me a minute to see this.
  - duskdozer 7mo ago
    Pour one out for the dev who got called on saturday morning to break the account deletion process
    - yididya436 7mo ago
tamimio 7mo ago
I never used openAI, or any other AI except claude casually on some stuff, but until this date never relied on it, hopefully I will keep it that way just like how I never had social media.
wateralien 7mo ago
Done.
kopollo 7mo ago
[flagged]
layer8 7mo ago
As the page seems to be broken at the moment: https://web.archive.org/web/20260210082000/https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6378407-how-to-delete-your-account https://web.archive.org/web/20260210082000/https://help.open...
8cvor6j844qw_d6 7mo ago
Just a heads up for people that used phone numbers to verify their account before you decide to proceed with account deletion. > New accounts are still subject to our limit of 3 accounts per phone number. Deleted accounts also count toward this limit. > Deleting an account does not free up another spot. > A phone number can only ever be used up to 3 times for verification to generate the first API key for your account on platform.openai.com.
- Panoramix 7mo ago
  More reasons to go with the competition
  - downboots 7mo ago
    What if the competition changed their mind in the future?
    - Panoramix 7mo ago
      There's several options, and in the future there will be even more. Labs like Mistral, Sakana AI already have good products; they will only get better.
hkt 7mo ago
In the app, account deletion currently errors saying the action can't be started. Hard to believe this is coincidence.
pluc 7mo ago
You can't close this box you've opened. I hope saving time on keystrokes was worth your democracy freedom and privacy. I'm gonna have fun watching it get ripped away
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- jbeninger 7mo ago
  What a weird thing to say.
zkmon 7mo ago
For people who still have e instincts to estimate other people by their face and gestures, Mr Altman appears glaringly a conman.
blell 7mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
cjmcqueen 7mo ago
Deleted. I never spent much money with OpenAI, but it's the signal/vote that I have to give the system that more killing, working with DoW, and caving into the Trump administration is an unpopular choice
mikkupikku 7mo ago
Normally I'd be quite cynical here and say few people will actually do this, but it's OpenAI and Anthropic is an arguably superior option anyway. I've only given money to Anthropic in the first place. Why have people been doing business with OpenAI? Is it better than Claude at something I'm not familiar with?
- aozgaa 7mo ago
  I personally am getting better results with codex recently. Claude ($20 plan) honestly comes across as a total ai slop turd of an app (unreliable, frequent incidents, burns through the token after 2-3 prompts that just clinfinite loop doing nothing). Codex will iterate much faster.
  - g8oz 7mo ago
    And yet so many people are having success with Claude Code. Perhaps you can learn from their experiences.
  - derwiki 7mo ago
    It’s all anecdata, but I heavily used Claude over the last two weeks and found it very reliable. My company pays for tokens and I haven’t noticed incidents.
mark_l_watson 7mo ago
I stopped paying OpenAI a long time ago. I get that actually deleting your OpenAI account hurts their ‘numbers’ and thus possibly their valuation. I choose another path: I use their tokens for free, hopefully helping them go out of business a little sooner. The irony is that until yesterday I felt more or less the same about Anthropic. Last night I paid for an Anthropic subscription I don’t need in order to both support their current cause vs. the US government and help their ‘numbers.’
- tehjoker 7mo ago
  I think what anthropic did yesterday was good, but I had to take a step back and think, well it wasn’t a bridge too far for them to allow claude to be used in the wildly illegal maduro kidnapping operation.
  - roxolotl 7mo ago
    Right the red line wasn’t much of a line. If you’re drawing your line only at unconstitutional mass surveillance and allowing the DoD to build skynet because Claude’s not ready for it yet that’s not really a line of principle.
    - bigDinosaur 7mo ago
      How is that not a line of principle? Principle doesn't mean where we'd all agree, nor does it mean what we'd deem acceptable, it just means there is a line somewhere - and mass surveillance or fully autonomous AI in the kill chain is a very clear principle.
      - jLaForest 7mo ago
        It's unprincipled because the implication is that once claude improves enough to be trusted with autonomous killing the company will be ok with it.
        elefanten 7mo ago
cedws 7mo ago
Next week Anthropic will do something evil and everyone will be moving back to OpenAI. Crazy thought but maybe we should regulate AI instead of relying on the hegemony of three companies to police themselves.
- Jare 7mo ago
  The problem is, who is "we". When EU tries to regulate AI, they are accused of being against progress and will destroy their economies. Any regulation that Trump would place on AI would be of the "do what I say and f*k up my opponents" kind. Which arguably is already happening.
- droidjj 7mo ago
  I’m all for regulation of AI, but that’s not a serious solution where the problem is the government pressuring private companies to do evil things. Consumer pressure isn’t much, but it’s not nothing.
- sandman83 7mo ago
  capitalism cannot progress with regulation
  - droidjj 7mo ago
    *without?
- notahacker 7mo ago
  Sure, but the reality is that the United States where these companies are headquartered currently has the exact opposite policy: Anthropic has been blacklisted by the DoW (and replaced by OpenAI) because the US administration thought that the very limited amount of self-regulation Anthropic insisted on was going too far.
  - Ylpertnodi 7mo ago
    Isn't it still the DoD, untill congress changes the name?
mvelbaum 7mo ago
I can't believe that people simply bought into Anthropic's PR messaging. This has nothing to do with "mass surveillance" (which is illegal anyway) or killbots, it's all about Dario wanting to be able to override lawful use: [0] https://x.com/CardilloSamuel/status/2027536128291528846 https://x.com/CardilloSamuel/status/2027536128291528846 [1] https://x.com/UnderSecPD/status/2027353177578783204 https://x.com/UnderSecPD/status/2027353177578783204 [2] https://x.com/zarathustra5150/status/2027616890516889658 https://x.com/zarathustra5150/status/2027616890516889658 I think it's quite rich all these people virtue signaling when: (1) Anthropic (and other labs) committed large scale theft of copyrighted materials to train their models. (2) Anthropic collects large swaths of data on its users (3) Dario seemed to have no issue working to help the CCP: https://x.com/ubuto23/status/2027578089371267201 https://x.com/ubuto23/status/2027578089371267201 Also, you must understand that if you support Anthropic, then you should be against Open Source models.
- mikkupikku 7mo ago
  Mass surveillance may be illegal anyway as you say, but what is the relevance of that? I hope you don't take it being illegal to imply that the government isn't going to do it.
  - mvelbaum 7mo ago
    If you think the gov't is doing illegal things to US citizens then provide the proof and expose it. I don't have evidence so I am not going to speculate either way.
    - roxolotl 7mo ago
      Doesn’t matter whether usage is legal companies are allowed to enter into contracts as they see fit. That’s a core principle of a society with free speech. If Anthropic said you weren’t allowed to use Claude on the toilet they are writing the contract.
    - nickthegreek 7mo ago
      Sir, they executed an American in the streets just a few weeks ago. The supreme court just said our govt illegally took money from its citizens via tariffs. they aren’t concerned with giving it back. We just bombed Iran without a single discussion in Congress. We are killing unknown individuals in boats in the ocean without trials.
aniviacat 7mo ago
I was just about to change from OpenAI to Anthropic, however when signing up I get this message: > Unfortunately, Claude is not available to new users right now. We're working hard to expand our availability soon. That's unfortunate timing.
- giancarlostoro 7mo ago
  I wonder why that is...
- krater23 7mo ago
  WTF?! Really? Then the bubble is bursting already.
  - 654wak654 7mo ago
    It's not the bubble, it's the DoD
  - UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
    TIL capacity limits mean that the bubble is bursting. Peak HN user logic.
    - gre 7mo ago
      ok but consider my mom asked me yesterday, "have you heard of claude?"
- brightball 7mo ago
  Wow, seriously? I signed my team up for it Thursday.
- jdiaz97 7mo ago
  You can always use z.ai or minimax
  - rahulroy 7mo ago
    I asked z.ai, "Which is the best model for coding" Here's the response: ``` As of late 2024, there isn't one single "best" model for every situation, as performance depends on whether you need raw coding intelligence, speed, or integration into your workflow. However, the current consensus among developers places Claude 3.5 Sonnet at the top for pure coding ability. Here is a breakdown of the best models for coding right now, categorized by their strengths: ... ``` So they have data until late 2024 and nothing beyond? They don't even perform a web search. Doesn't seem to be on par with other frontier models.
iugtmkbdfil834 7mo ago
I am confused. Nothing has changed ( except, obviously, public perception of things ). Why would openAI be a target to 'punish' now and not other times it transgressed ( especially now that it didn't actually do anything )? Honestly, this crap annoys me more than anything else. Don't get me wrong. I am personally a personal inference machine advocate, but I kinda accept it may not be a viable path for everyone.
- Marcan 7mo ago
  I assume you missed this announcement from OpenAI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650
  - iugtmkbdfil834 7mo ago
    Oh. That is indeed new. I take its part of the Anthropic saga follow up. In a sense, nothing still changed, because iirc, openAI was already doing stuff for DOW, but I can see now the reason for the reaction.
zkmon 7mo ago
Unfortunately, HN might represent a very tiny percentage of the decision makers who conduct business with OpenAI.
- Terretta 7mo ago
  % of decision makers less relevant than % of recurring spend — decision makers over spend for 10s to 100s of Ks of “seats” are here.
wosined 7mo ago
Boycott them all. Shit anti-human tech & philosophy.
andytratt 7mo ago
all this political activity should get flagged according to HN terms
heraldgeezer 7mo ago
Why are your panties in a twist? Do you rather be killed by Chinese AI instead?
- jdiaz97 7mo ago
  You can use Anthropic btw.
  - heraldgeezer 7mo ago
    I will :) Way better model also
lvl155 7mo ago
I canceled my subscription though I still have a lot of money in API (which I know they don’t refund). I will sundown and move it all over to Anthropic/Google. It’s pretty clear to me what OAI is doing. Shame on anyone working there selling their souls for a few more pennies. Shame because Codex was a bit better for me in the past few weeks but not enough to justify spending my money on them.
- Wowfunhappy 7mo ago
  ...seems to me you should try to spend down those credits first, even if it's on something completely useless. Otherwise you're giving them free money (they never had to spend the compute).
lackoftactics 7mo ago
I am buying Anthrophic subscription. I know everything could change and they could also turn evil, but currently they showed willingness to be the good guy
- 101008 7mo ago
  The least of the bad guys. The red line is still far away from being good guys.
  - lackoftactics 7mo ago
    that's also fair
wraptile 7mo ago
Honestly it is a good time to vote with your wallet - the difference between the models for day to day tasks is very miniscule.
resters 7mo ago
We've seen the Trump administration disregard so many laws already, and abuse power so excessively, that Sam's comments come off as exceptionally and willfully naive, or exceptionally and willfully greedy to the point of truly not caring that OpenAI's technology will undoubtedly be used to break many, many more laws and violate the civil rights or human rights of many, many more people. For a few months now, ChatGPT 5.x has been somewhat lobotomized on political issues and has appeared to substitute a gpt-4o caliber "fair and balanced" response whenever anything where a reasoning AI would criticize the Trump administration might end up in the response output. Surely that was part of the pitch at some level, and now the deal has been won. Greg Brockman apparently donated money to Trump, and the whole OpenAI team put on suits and posed for pictures with Donald and behaved officiously before Donald facilitated the $100M "deal" that ended up falling apart later. The only way authoritarian control could be exerted over AI at scale was to make AI companies dependent on government contracts for survival. OpenAI's fundraise would not have happened without the contract signed, and the money would have gone to Grok or whichever competitor was willing to submit. Before long much of the reasoning capabilities of models will be neutered, the capacity to inform and to disrupt science and technology will be stripped from the models to preserve the status quo and to preserve authoritarian control. Silicon Valley pushing for Federal laws preventing states from regulating AI is not just anti-democratic (building software has never been cheaper so of course building compliance with state laws would have been extremely affordable in relative terms). But forced Federal limits on state laws create a monopoly and grant the early winners incumbent status for a while, which is a financial outcome, not a technological or social one. Enjoy frontier AI while you can, because it will go away. More and more topics will get the lobotomized output, your conversation will be flagged and you will be given a score assessing the level of threat you pose to the regime. This stuff is already in place. Even Claude does it if you ask about Gaza, but a bit of well-reasoned argumentation will convince it. OpenAI's lobotomies are deeper and more insidious. I call upon OpenAI to follow DeepSeek's lead and open source more models and techniques.
- gmerc 7mo ago
  He's a Thiel disciple. Thiel orchestrated Trumps digital campaign. The End.
cynicalsecurity 7mo ago
Nope.
Beestie 7mo ago
Done.
rabf 7mo ago
First you want the goverment to regulate AI. Now you want AI companies to regulate the goverment? Personally when I buy something I do whatever I want with it and imagine the DOD feels the same.
- cromulent 7mo ago
  My understanding is that the DOD signed the terms of service, and are now trying to renegotiate them. Anthropic has declined to change the terms. This makes the government angry.
  - rabf 7mo ago
    I just find it strange that you have the same people always complaining about how big tech is too powerful. If you have a problem with what you military is upto, you should take that up with your elected representatives. Boycotting an AI company is a laughable response and will have no effect on outcomes here.
VladVladikoff 7mo ago
This feels like performative virtue signalling which is really not in the spirit of hacker news.
tvbusy 7mo ago
I don't have an account with them. Would it make sense to sign up and create a script to use up the monthly free quota with random characters?
MinimalAction 7mo ago
Quite offtopics: 1. For a site visited by millions, a header element (perhaps h2, h3, h4) followed by a paragraph has such less spacing, it looks weird and hard to read. 2. There is an interesting question at the end [0]: Can you reactivate my deleted account? I was quite interested because if the could, then they never really deleted the data. The page doesn't answer that question satisfactorily at all! [0]: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9019931-can-you-reactivate-my-deleted-account https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9019931-can-you-reactiva...
- lolpython 7mo ago
  I don’t see what’s unclear about that account deletion page to be honest. It reads clearly to me that the account has been deleted and if you want to use the same email again, you can create an entirely new account using the same email, but it doesn’t reactivate the account.
- derwiki 7mo ago
  If you’re in California, the move is to file a CCPA Delete request. IANAL but it seems illegal to process that request and allow account to be resurrected.
frag 7mo ago
nothing is permanent... and i wonder if they actually delete your account (of course not)
fandorin 7mo ago
I haven’t used chatgpt for so long now. Only Claude and Gemini. Account permanently removed.
maplethorpe 7mo ago
I really didn't expect OpenAI to do something as immoral as this, despite their history of stealing the world's data to create a public-facing deep-fake generation machine. I am shocked and appalled.
- pier25 7mo ago
  They are desperate for cash.
- hakrgrl 7mo ago
  The US govt is fighting against true immorality in this very hour, the radical Muslim Iranian government who has been murdering thousands of citizens and holding the population hostage for decades. Ask the Iranian people if they think openai is immoral.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    This has nothing to do with Iran. If anything, getting into a brouhaha with Anthropic on the eve of a war was a bit idiotic.
  - citizenkeen 7mo ago
    The parents of the girls in the children’s school we just bombed could probably be convinced.
  - Koffiepoeder 7mo ago
    Do you mean attacking a second country in the top 10 oil/gas reserve ranking in mere weeks, while threatening to invade a third?
    - hakrgrl 7mo ago
      I mean the entire country is tired of women getting murdered over not wearing hijabs
      - 7mo ago
ck2 7mo ago
Yeah sure right after everyone deletes their X account and stops posting links here Altman's immorality is theoretical Musk's is literal, he's murdered a million people by purposely destroying USAID, leaving food and medication already paid for to rot in warehouses
segfaultex 7mo ago
Deleted mine months ago. Altman is one of the slimiest tech ceos out there, which is saying something.
adam12 7mo ago
Could this be the pin?
teiferer 7mo ago
I expected the comments to mention Scott Galloway. Haven't found his name here, so I am doing that now. Context is his https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/ https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/ campaign.
hakrgrl 7mo ago
It's a sad irony where the most privileged and protected people (hn crowd) attack the people, institutions, and traditions (us govt, military) that made possible the peaceful and abundant world they take for granted.
- Ylpertnodi 7mo ago
  I'm Eu, and very grateful to the US, and the military wing of the US, for the peace we've had - and take for granted. But, things change. And the US has shown itself to be unreliable, and vindictive, too.
chazftw 7mo ago
I don’t trust OpenAI, as they don’t trust me.
findthebug 7mo ago
all what i hear is mimimimi... guys big tech is playing this game for decades now. what changed? they selling private data, manipulating society, turning children in doom scrolling addicts. facebook, google and others doing this for years an no one cares. i deleted fb and whatsup years ago, 99% of my friends and fam still using it until today. as long as they can flip some dollars nothing will change and 99% will not delete anything because of 99% are to lazy and give a shit.
ChicagoDave 7mo ago
Here’s my take: - when I saw Altman driving a multimillion dollar car while OpenAI was still a nonprofit, all of his scientists left to start rival firms, and the details of why they tried to fire him were legit, I dumped ChatGPT and moved to the new company - Anthropic. - The Pro Max $200/month subscription has uncapped my workflow to where I’ve created several substantial and complex applications in compressed timeframes. (https://devarch.ai https://devarch.ai if you want to be productive) - Anthropic has clearly evolved towards being a good corporate citizen and is staging itself to replace the market’s developer-first mentality from its past leaders (Microsoft, Google, Oracle). - Claude Code in the last three months has finally made it possible to dump Windows and buy a loaded MacBook Pro. It’s been a week since I logged into my Surface Laptop 5. - if Anthropic does break from its current evolutionary trajectory, I plan to build out my own at-home platform anyway. The open source models are extraordinarily effective.
- dewey 7mo ago
  > when I saw Altman driving a multimillion dollar car while OpenAI was still a nonprofit If that would be a first time founder that would be much more of a red flag than for someone’s who’s already beyond rich and powerful even before OpenAI became a thing.
  - ChicagoDave 7mo ago
    Yeah I know he’d already bagged, but the optics were bad. The rest of my statement stands.
    - randycupertino 7mo ago
      I had a similar reaction when I interviewed at Theranos before it was known they were a scam and Elizabeth and Sunny both had insane Lamborginis parked illegally in the handicapped spaces in front of the Theranos building. It was so offputting seeing the CEO and founders of a healthcare company hogging the handicapped spaces that were supposed to be for people who needed them. They seemed super shady for a bunch of other reasons but this was a big red flag! So obnoxious to steal the handicapped spaces with your stupid sports cars.
gradus_ad 7mo ago
Poll: are you boycotting because OpenAI is working with a military, or specifically because it is working with the US military?
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
hilliardfarmer 7mo ago
Deleted.
ukblewis 7mo ago
This is utter BS. You’re entitled not agree with a company… but using Hacker News to shout that at the world. Just shitty behaviour
jhack 7mo ago
Done and done. Hope everyone can find the time and do the same.
motbus3 7mo ago
I will say that I work for a company where the owner is a stubborn old man who thinks you need to pay for the services and nothing you get indirectly should be considered honest and fair. The company downsized 4 times in 3 years... We are still trying, but people see no value because they don't understand how they will be bitten back
CompoundEyes 7mo ago
Altman tweet: “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.” From that it reads like the administration quickly agreed to the terms Anthropic wanted with OpenAI instead.
- Reagan_Ridley 7mo ago
  Altman wanted to you to believe he got the same deal Amodei didn't, because he has the art of deal.
- curt15 7mo ago
  That's what Altman tweeted. Did it actually happen?
- WarmWash 7mo ago
  There is almost certainly more to this whole DoD-Anthropic story than is getting through.
- fwipsy 7mo ago
  Does "putting them in the agreement" mean "we will never allow them," or "we will not allow them if they are illegal?" Here's a link which says that the DoD was willing to make up with anthropic any time if they allowed surveillance of Americans: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/anthropic-pentagon-supply-chain-risk-claude https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/anthropic-pentagon-supply-c... Another leak says the agreement "reflects existing law and the pentagon's policies." https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/pentagon-openai-safety-red-lines-anthropic https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/pentagon-openai-safety-red-... Seems like Altman wants to spin this as the same principled stand anthropic took, but they really caved to the DoD's "all legal applications" framing. Up to you to decide how much you think the law restrains the Pentagon here.
IAmGraydon 7mo ago
For those who are having trouble deleting their account, just go to Settings > Account > Manage > Cancel Subscription. No need to delete the account all together. Just stop paying them.
nailer 7mo ago
From the HN Guidelines: > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
garyrob 7mo ago
"If you delete your account, we will delete your data within 30 days, except we may retain a limited set of data for longer where required or permitted by law." "where required".... hmm, that seems OK. We don't want to violate the law! "or permitted".... er... [I wonder why this comment is being voted down. Do people here think it's NOT OK to comply with the law with respect to retaining data? Or is the reason somehow the opposite of that? Not sure. But my point was that the "where required" clause seems moot if they are going to retain data where "permitted", which in my book, is NOT OK.]
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
otterley 7mo ago
The stories I’ve been reading say that the DoW’s agreement with OpenAI contain the very same limitations as the agreement with Anthropic did. In other words, they pressured Anthropic to eliminate those restrictions, Anthropic declined, then they made a huge fuss calling them “a radical left, woke company,” put them on the supply-chain risk list, then went with OpenAI even though OpenAI isn’t changing anything either. The whole story makes no sense to me. The DoW didn’t get what they wanted, and now Anthropic is tarred and feathered. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of-anthropics-ai-models-ff3550d9?st=TpEn2J&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of... “OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said the company’s deal with the Defense Department includes those same prohibitions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, as well as technical safeguards to make sure the models behave as they should.”
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- ddtaylor 7mo ago
  The PR strategy described here is often referred to as "The Overton Window Shift" or "Strategic Iteration." Essentially, OpenAI (or any entity using this tactic) enters a negotiation or public debate by asserting a position that seems flexible or "safety-first." When a competitor like Anthropic holds a firm ethical line, the entity uses aggressive framing—or coordinates with third parties—to paint that competitor as an outlier or "radical." By the time the dust settles and the entity signs a deal with the exact same restrictions they previously criticized, the public and stakeholders have been fatigued by the controversy. The goal is to normalize their own brand as the "pragmatic" choice while the competitor remains "tarred and feathered," effectively moving the goalposts of acceptable behavior until the original contradiction is ignored.
  - otterley 7mo ago
    It also helps greatly if you can leverage the opportunity window of a temper tantrum being thrown by an incompetent, petulant, volatile, and impulsive President.
sean_the_geek 7mo ago
Done and deleted.
BloondAndDoom 7mo ago
I’m deleting my account as well, is there a way to export all chats to Claude or just Download to later load into a local LLM? edit: Profile > Settings > Data Control > Export Unfortunately Claude doesn't seem to have anyway to export these chats, no SDK, no native way of doing it, and I cannot think of a way other than hacky browser automation which might even trigger a ban. If anyone figures this out please share.
- bicx 7mo ago
  You will probably never actually be able to create actual Claude chats from OpenAI chats, but you could ask Claude to read and distill your old OpenAI chats into Claude chat context. It won’t be the same, but it’s better than nothing, depending on what you’re hoping to get out of it.
athanasiosem 7mo ago
Just deleted my account.
Reagan_Ridley 7mo ago
this post (4hrs ago, 1.5k points) is ranked 22, while quite a few older posts with less points are above it? hmmm
vldszn 7mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195085
phernandez 7mo ago
PSA: Export your ChatGPT conversations before cancelling If you're thinking about cancelling (or switching to Claude/Gemini), don't lose months of conversations first. I built Basic Memory — it imports your ChatGPT export and turns it into plain Markdown files. Every conversation becomes a file you can actually read, search, and use with whatever AI you switch to. This is not an ad. It is free and open source. Your data belongs to you. Keep it. Steps: 1. Settings → Data Controls → Export Data (ChatGPT emails you a zip) 2. Install Basic Memory (brew tap basicmachines-co/basic-memory && brew install basic-memory) bm import chatgpt conversations.zip Complete docs: http://docs.basicmemory.com http://docs.basicmemory.com
- ray_v 7mo ago
  I suspect that the export feature is going to be "broken" for a good long while; I've been waiting for mine since 8 am ... a little over 5 hours now.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7mo ago
    It took exactly 24 hours, to the minute, from the time I received the "we're generating an export" file until I got the download link, so guessing they're either batching it or deliberately sending after 24 hours because it adds friction to the account deletion process.
    - ray_v 7mo ago
      it's funny, because that was basically my experience as well lol. ... and now the login/logout endpoints are broken for Claude this morning, because of course they are! https://status.claude.com/incidents/0ghc53zpsfmt https://status.claude.com/incidents/0ghc53zpsfmt
davidlorean1985 7mo ago
done.
ikidd 7mo ago
I've been trying to delete accounts at Anthropic and Cursor because they don't let you change email addresses (don't even get me started on that stupidity). But until my subscriptions that I've cancelled run out and/or the final billing is done, I can't actually delete them. I can't just forfeit the remaining time on my month's subscription, I can't force them to bill me and shut it down, and nothing I do gets me where I can ask a human to just shut it down. I also have no option to remove my billing information in case someone gains access to my account under my old email address, which is trivial to do. I honestly think I'm going to have to cancel my credit card and get it replaced to accomplish breaking that connection with those two companies.
nunez 7mo ago
I'm so desensitized to hostile account deletion workflows. I do heaps of them whenever I purge stale entries in my 1Password vaults. They are almost-universally absolutely awful, and I really wish we could federally enforce better practices. OpenAI's process actually isn't too bad from what I'm seeing (unless they updated it after this hit the front page). At least they let you delete your account from the web. Snapchat makes you wait three days after initiating a delete request before you can _actually_ delete your account, and it has to be from the same device (or, if done from the web, a browser with cookies to the site still present). Most services make you email their privacy@ mailbox or give them a call to initiate a deletion (but not before hitting you with a retention offer, if you call in). Some services will straight-up reject your deletion request if you don't live in Europe or California. Many medical services, for example. They also keep your data hostage. UPDATE: Ah, this is a "here's how to protest OpenAI for succumbing to this administration's DoD". Carry on then!
redbell 7mo ago
> If you delete your account, we will delete your data within 30 days, except we may retain a limited set of data for longer where required or permitted by law. It's this expression that breaks the deal for me. There's always such wide, vague exception that might be interpreted differently each time, depending on the context!
- whamlastxmas 7mo ago
  They factually already have a legal requirement to keep every single chat so it's pretty misleading to say they're hard deleted when they never are
- bo1024 7mo ago
  Logically and legally equivalent to "we will keep your data forever unless legally required to delete it.".
jcrben 7mo ago
If you hammer their free tier with lots of nonsense queries that also probably doesn't help them. Definitely don't pay them With that said, for the free tier I tend to use grok - another provider I will never pay Anthropic does get money from me for now
dmead 7mo ago
has this thread been removed from the top of hacker news?
noonething 7mo ago
I canceled 2 months ago and they keep giving me free pro subscriptions
ChildOfChaos 7mo ago
The whole military thing, as far as I can see, what OpenAI and Anthropic are doing is the same, is it not? According to OpenAI's statement it seems there terms were the same as Anthropic. Of course there is a possible reason to distrust them, but it seems public theatre. I'm more concerned this is actually a coverup for a bribe, considering Brockman just dominated $25 million.
nesqi 7mo ago
"Your Delete my GPTs request has been completed"
clbrmbr 7mo ago
Just deleted my account. Sama’s bad faith communication on X really sealed the deal for me. Moving my company over to Claude on Monday.
Yfalcon42 7mo ago
I will delete all my accounts
Yfalcon42 7mo ago
I knew that Altman was a short term thinker, but this decision is surprising even for him. I will delete my accounts and never come back

1929 points by carlosrg 7mo ago

webdevver 7mo ago

wish oai was publicly traded so i could buy the dip on all this nonsense. the one for musk was super juicy.

raincole 7mo ago
It's weird to assume there would be a dip if it were publicly traded. "The company I hold just secured a government contract. Better sell it." - Imaginary Shareholder
- stingraycharles 7mo ago
  As a matter of fact, the stock would be popping on the news that the DoD will be replacing Anthropic + Palantir with OpenAI + Palantir.
mentalgear 7mo ago
Great for you surfin' musk's hype wave while he turns the world into his own fascist dominion. At least you made some bucks along the way! Those come certainly in useful - albeit are quickly depleted - once you live in a totalitarian world where every interaction with the monopolistic oligarchic big-tech-state monster requires a bribe, probably in shitcoins. (see the Russian oligarchic state that the US is quickly progressing towards - apparently Russians have no word for "bribe", as it's common practice to give gov agents "gifts" if you want anything being done.)
- zthrowaway 7mo ago
  We already live in an oligarchy. The difference between us and Russia is that their government controls the oligarchy. Here the oligarchy controls the government. Also please stop throwing around the fascist word for everything, good lord it’s tiring and cringe.
  - etyhhgfff 7mo ago
    I see a bunch of cynicism in this reply, but I guess you would argue there is none. Fair enough.

silverwind 7mo ago

Good think I never had one.

stingraycharles 7mo ago

Why, though? What, really, does anyone envision the next decade with government + AI is going to be like? Obviously mass surveillance is already happening. Obviously the line between “human kills other human” is blurring for a long time already, eg remote operated drones. Missiles are already remotely controlled and navigating and detecting and following moving targets autonomously. What’s the goal of people who think deleting their OpenAI account will make an impact?

vee-kay 7mo ago
AI will get access to missiles, fighter jets, attack drones, and even nuclear launch codes - that's the fear. Even when the bombs drop from the sky, at least those humans who had deleted their OpenAI account can rest easy, knowing that that they weren't the ones supporting the AI that will delete humanity.
- stingraycharles 7mo ago
  And what if an even worse alternative becomes the AI of choice for the DoD if OpenAI didn’t get this deal?
  - tovej 7mo ago
    Then the sane thing to do is to boycott that AI provider as well. Opposing all AI companies tied to the war industry is a pretty vanilla principles stance, which also makes sense rationally if you want to "minimize harm".
  - aniviacat 7mo ago
    If the DoW had to rely on worse AI models, the process of integrating AI into their systems would be slowed down.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  - 7mo ago

ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago

Ok I'll bite: Why is this interesting? Is it because it's really difficult to delete? Or what?

nesk_ 7mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
  Ah it's activism then, saying "you should delete it and here's how" Got it, thank you.
  - jdiaz97 7mo ago
    Yeah a lot of people don't like liars and warmongers. Scam Altman already got community noted on the DoW tweet for lying.
    - ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
      Ah I've been calling him Sam Conman, but Scam Altman sounds way better.
- crazygringo 7mo ago
  Thank you. Can't believe I had to scroll this far down for context.
ApolloFortyNine 7mo ago
Dang must be asleep, it's a political post essentially.

hliyan 7mo ago

Even for people who intend to use it in the future, there's a way to send a message with only a 30 day hiatus: if you really want, you can recreate the account with the same email address after 30 days, withe a clean slate. I'm between a slight rock and a hard place so cannot completely get out of OAI just yet, but I can manage 30 days without it.

nomel 7mo ago
> there's a way to send a message with only a 30 day hiatus And that message would be "We have a product so valuable/useful that not even their weak ideals and moral obligations could keep them away!"
- hliyan 7mo ago
  Large corporations do not, and are not able to, respond to long term signals. One month is literally a third of a corporations's attention span (a financial quarter).
  - anon_shill 7mo ago
    Ehh. In the last corporate PR nightmare I was witness to internally we absolutely tracked return subscribers in our fallout dashboard.
- KronisLV 7mo ago
  > And that message would be "We have a product so valuable/useful that not even their weak ideals and moral obligations could keep them away!" Who knows, maybe within those 30 days you find that other offerings are good enough for your needs - I've largely moved over to Anthropic's Max subscription for all my needs, I don't even need Cerebras Coder anymore because Opus 4.6 is just so good.
mrgordon 7mo ago
Just use a different LLM lol. It’s not even the best one anymore

RicoElectrico 7mo ago

FYI for basic stuff you can always use duck.ai which also aggregates other models.

mark_l_watson 7mo ago
Duck.ai seems good, as is Proton’s Lumo.

tzahifadida 7mo ago

What about claude? Don't think they wont be used militarily that is naive...

soulofmischief 7mo ago
You're out of the loop and making baseless assumptions. This thread is currently trending because OpenAI just slid into the US CorpGov's DMs and signed a contract, hours after Anthropic was banned by the US government for not letting the military do whatever they want. https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://x.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070 https://x.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070
- fnordpiglet 7mo ago
  Yeah, in fact, I’m increasing my subscription to Anthropic and decreasing to OAI. Now if there was a way to easily port conversation history between one and another I’d probably be fine with deleting OpenAI. ChatGPT has years of my and my families interactions in its history and those are mostly useless to others, but to me they’re valuable. But the knob I have is my spend, so here it goes… If OpenAI had shown any fidelity or backbone in the least, then different story. A unified industry against any one being bullied into business decisions they don’t want to make is a wall and a strengthening of competition. Now the government will use war powers to shape private industries competitive landscape and turn companies with a core business principles into tools of the state through unilateral and likely unlawful actions, and OpenAI’s first response is to grab the money and shove their competitors under the government bus. We are all much less safe, and the AI industry much much weaker as a result.
  - soulofmischief 7mo ago
    Export your data and ask Claude to shove it in a database that you can let it access anytime you want via tool calling. I agree, this could have been a moment of solidarity across the industry, an acknowledgement that we're all in this together having fun and building out intelligent systems, and instead we're seeing Sam Altman yet again for who he really is.

curtisblaine 7mo ago

[flagged]

JasonADrury 7mo ago
Sometimes threads are flagged, sometimes they aren't. This is how HN has always worked. For the most part it depends on the users.

xyst 7mo ago

This is what happens when a snake oil salesman like Sam Altman back door deals/sleazes his way back into a company. He is doing anything to keep Titanic from sinking. Stooping as low as catering to this garbage administration, and being used as a political pawn.

adverbly 7mo ago

Done

andela4a 7mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

mentalgear 7mo ago

Posting it here as a top-level comment as many people asked why boycott just openAi: ----- openAI is the least trustworthy of the Big LLM providers. See S(c)am Altman's track record, especially his early comments in senate hearings where: * he warned of engagement-optimisation strategies, like social media, being used for chatbots / LLMs. * also, he warned that "ads would be the last resort" for LLM companies. Both of his own warnings he casually ignored as ChatGPT / openAI has now fully converted to Facebook's tactics of "move fast and break things" - even if it is society itself. A complete turn away from the original AI for science lab it was founded as, which explains why every real (founding) ML scientist has left the company years ago. While still being for-profit outfits, at least DeepMind and Anthrophic are headed by actual scientists - not marketing guys. At least for me, that brings me some confidence in their intentions as, as scientists we often seek knowledge, not power for power's sake.

rustyhancock 7mo ago
Just boycott them all if you can. That's what I've done. Some people's livelihoods probably depends on Claude and they can't say use Glm4.7 on HF. Fine. But it's a moral compromise, that's life sometimes you need to compromise what you want for what you need. just don't tell yourself it's a reasonable line to hold. I can't decouple from Google unfortunately but I accept that without fooling myself into thinking "Oh but Google are fine".
- mentalgear 7mo ago
  I agree, if you can do boycott all of them (and maybe use open weight models locally or on e2ee cloud inference providers) - BUT I also think it 's crucial at a moment like this to take a stance against corporations like openAi that sign with the War Department, willing to introduce mass surveillance and autonomous weapons powered by brittle LLMs. This is a recipe for disaster and the only way they will sway away is by feeling it in the money/subscriptions and in their public image they so carefully crafted. Note: yes, openAi claims it doesn't support the DoW above mentioned use-caes - but they have signed with the DoW and it is HIGHLY unlikely the DoW would give them a different terms than Antrohopic (at least regarding the substance). Maybe openAi was just happy with the "coat of paint" legalese the DoW offered - which Anthropic specifically called out as ineffective in their statement. I also wouldn't put it past Altman, who is much more friendly with Trumpo's gov, to play a double game here to get their main competitor out of the game. But at least in this case I hope he's acting for the benefit of all by truly standing with Anthropic on the issue.

abbadadda 7mo ago

LOL I keep getting, “ Oops, an error occurred! Too many failed attempts. Try again”… my login codes are mysteriously not working when trying to delete my OpenAI/ChatGPT account.

itsyonas 7mo ago
When I type in 'DELETE', the button just stays disabled for me. When I tried to make the request through their 'Privacy' portal, I receive a mysterious 'Session expired' error message, and now I've been locked out with the message 'Too many failed attempts'...
- ayhanfuat 7mo ago
  Did you type in your email? It seems already filled in because it shows you your email address as the placeholder text but you need to fill in.
  - itsyonas 7mo ago
    Oops, my mistake. That worked. - Thanks.
- abbadadda 7mo ago
  Probably, on the backend: “Server Error 500: Users deleting OpenAI Accounts too fast. Try again later.”
- 0Ggr3g 7mo ago
  Make sure you enter both DELETE and your email above. It took me a minute to see this.
- duskdozer 7mo ago
  Pour one out for the dev who got called on saturday morning to break the account deletion process
  - yididya436 7mo ago

tamimio 7mo ago

I never used openAI, or any other AI except claude casually on some stuff, but until this date never relied on it, hopefully I will keep it that way just like how I never had social media.

wateralien 7mo ago

Done.

kopollo 7mo ago

[flagged]

layer8 7mo ago

As the page seems to be broken at the moment: https://web.archive.org/web/20260210082000/https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6378407-how-to-delete-your-account https://web.archive.org/web/20260210082000/https://help.open...

8cvor6j844qw_d6 7mo ago

Just a heads up for people that used phone numbers to verify their account before you decide to proceed with account deletion. > New accounts are still subject to our limit of 3 accounts per phone number. Deleted accounts also count toward this limit. > Deleting an account does not free up another spot. > A phone number can only ever be used up to 3 times for verification to generate the first API key for your account on platform.openai.com.

Panoramix 7mo ago
More reasons to go with the competition
- downboots 7mo ago
  What if the competition changed their mind in the future?
  - Panoramix 7mo ago
    There's several options, and in the future there will be even more. Labs like Mistral, Sakana AI already have good products; they will only get better.

hkt 7mo ago

In the app, account deletion currently errors saying the action can't be started. Hard to believe this is coincidence.

pluc 7mo ago

You can't close this box you've opened. I hope saving time on keystrokes was worth your democracy freedom and privacy. I'm gonna have fun watching it get ripped away

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
jbeninger 7mo ago
What a weird thing to say.

zkmon 7mo ago

For people who still have e instincts to estimate other people by their face and gestures, Mr Altman appears glaringly a conman.

blell 7mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

cjmcqueen 7mo ago

Deleted. I never spent much money with OpenAI, but it's the signal/vote that I have to give the system that more killing, working with DoW, and caving into the Trump administration is an unpopular choice

mikkupikku 7mo ago

Normally I'd be quite cynical here and say few people will actually do this, but it's OpenAI and Anthropic is an arguably superior option anyway. I've only given money to Anthropic in the first place. Why have people been doing business with OpenAI? Is it better than Claude at something I'm not familiar with?

aozgaa 7mo ago
I personally am getting better results with codex recently. Claude ($20 plan) honestly comes across as a total ai slop turd of an app (unreliable, frequent incidents, burns through the token after 2-3 prompts that just clinfinite loop doing nothing). Codex will iterate much faster.
- g8oz 7mo ago
  And yet so many people are having success with Claude Code. Perhaps you can learn from their experiences.
- derwiki 7mo ago
  It’s all anecdata, but I heavily used Claude over the last two weeks and found it very reliable. My company pays for tokens and I haven’t noticed incidents.

mark_l_watson 7mo ago

I stopped paying OpenAI a long time ago. I get that actually deleting your OpenAI account hurts their ‘numbers’ and thus possibly their valuation. I choose another path: I use their tokens for free, hopefully helping them go out of business a little sooner. The irony is that until yesterday I felt more or less the same about Anthropic. Last night I paid for an Anthropic subscription I don’t need in order to both support their current cause vs. the US government and help their ‘numbers.’

tehjoker 7mo ago
I think what anthropic did yesterday was good, but I had to take a step back and think, well it wasn’t a bridge too far for them to allow claude to be used in the wildly illegal maduro kidnapping operation.
- roxolotl 7mo ago
  Right the red line wasn’t much of a line. If you’re drawing your line only at unconstitutional mass surveillance and allowing the DoD to build skynet because Claude’s not ready for it yet that’s not really a line of principle.
  - bigDinosaur 7mo ago
    How is that not a line of principle? Principle doesn't mean where we'd all agree, nor does it mean what we'd deem acceptable, it just means there is a line somewhere - and mass surveillance or fully autonomous AI in the kill chain is a very clear principle.
    - jLaForest 7mo ago
      It's unprincipled because the implication is that once claude improves enough to be trusted with autonomous killing the company will be ok with it.
      - elefanten 7mo ago

cedws 7mo ago

Next week Anthropic will do something evil and everyone will be moving back to OpenAI. Crazy thought but maybe we should regulate AI instead of relying on the hegemony of three companies to police themselves.

Jare 7mo ago
The problem is, who is "we". When EU tries to regulate AI, they are accused of being against progress and will destroy their economies. Any regulation that Trump would place on AI would be of the "do what I say and f*k up my opponents" kind. Which arguably is already happening.
droidjj 7mo ago
I’m all for regulation of AI, but that’s not a serious solution where the problem is the government pressuring private companies to do evil things. Consumer pressure isn’t much, but it’s not nothing.
sandman83 7mo ago
capitalism cannot progress with regulation
- droidjj 7mo ago
  *without?
notahacker 7mo ago
Sure, but the reality is that the United States where these companies are headquartered currently has the exact opposite policy: Anthropic has been blacklisted by the DoW (and replaced by OpenAI) because the US administration thought that the very limited amount of self-regulation Anthropic insisted on was going too far.
- Ylpertnodi 7mo ago
  Isn't it still the DoD, untill congress changes the name?

mvelbaum 7mo ago

I can't believe that people simply bought into Anthropic's PR messaging. This has nothing to do with "mass surveillance" (which is illegal anyway) or killbots, it's all about Dario wanting to be able to override lawful use: [0] https://x.com/CardilloSamuel/status/2027536128291528846 https://x.com/CardilloSamuel/status/2027536128291528846 [1] https://x.com/UnderSecPD/status/2027353177578783204 https://x.com/UnderSecPD/status/2027353177578783204 [2] https://x.com/zarathustra5150/status/2027616890516889658 https://x.com/zarathustra5150/status/2027616890516889658 I think it's quite rich all these people virtue signaling when: (1) Anthropic (and other labs) committed large scale theft of copyrighted materials to train their models. (2) Anthropic collects large swaths of data on its users (3) Dario seemed to have no issue working to help the CCP: https://x.com/ubuto23/status/2027578089371267201 https://x.com/ubuto23/status/2027578089371267201 Also, you must understand that if you support Anthropic, then you should be against Open Source models.

mikkupikku 7mo ago
Mass surveillance may be illegal anyway as you say, but what is the relevance of that? I hope you don't take it being illegal to imply that the government isn't going to do it.
- mvelbaum 7mo ago
  If you think the gov't is doing illegal things to US citizens then provide the proof and expose it. I don't have evidence so I am not going to speculate either way.
  - roxolotl 7mo ago
    Doesn’t matter whether usage is legal companies are allowed to enter into contracts as they see fit. That’s a core principle of a society with free speech. If Anthropic said you weren’t allowed to use Claude on the toilet they are writing the contract.
  - nickthegreek 7mo ago
    Sir, they executed an American in the streets just a few weeks ago. The supreme court just said our govt illegally took money from its citizens via tariffs. they aren’t concerned with giving it back. We just bombed Iran without a single discussion in Congress. We are killing unknown individuals in boats in the ocean without trials.

aniviacat 7mo ago

I was just about to change from OpenAI to Anthropic, however when signing up I get this message: > Unfortunately, Claude is not available to new users right now. We're working hard to expand our availability soon. That's unfortunate timing.

giancarlostoro 7mo ago
I wonder why that is...
krater23 7mo ago
WTF?! Really? Then the bubble is bursting already.
- 654wak654 7mo ago
  It's not the bubble, it's the DoD
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
  TIL capacity limits mean that the bubble is bursting. Peak HN user logic.
  - gre 7mo ago
    ok but consider my mom asked me yesterday, "have you heard of claude?"
brightball 7mo ago
Wow, seriously? I signed my team up for it Thursday.
jdiaz97 7mo ago
You can always use z.ai or minimax
- rahulroy 7mo ago
  I asked z.ai, "Which is the best model for coding" Here's the response: ``` As of late 2024, there isn't one single "best" model for every situation, as performance depends on whether you need raw coding intelligence, speed, or integration into your workflow. However, the current consensus among developers places Claude 3.5 Sonnet at the top for pure coding ability. Here is a breakdown of the best models for coding right now, categorized by their strengths: ... ``` So they have data until late 2024 and nothing beyond? They don't even perform a web search. Doesn't seem to be on par with other frontier models.

iugtmkbdfil834 7mo ago

I am confused. Nothing has changed ( except, obviously, public perception of things ). Why would openAI be a target to 'punish' now and not other times it transgressed ( especially now that it didn't actually do anything )? Honestly, this crap annoys me more than anything else. Don't get me wrong. I am personally a personal inference machine advocate, but I kinda accept it may not be a viable path for everyone.

Marcan 7mo ago
I assume you missed this announcement from OpenAI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189650
- iugtmkbdfil834 7mo ago
  Oh. That is indeed new. I take its part of the Anthropic saga follow up. In a sense, nothing still changed, because iirc, openAI was already doing stuff for DOW, but I can see now the reason for the reaction.

zkmon 7mo ago

Unfortunately, HN might represent a very tiny percentage of the decision makers who conduct business with OpenAI.

Terretta 7mo ago
% of decision makers less relevant than % of recurring spend — decision makers over spend for 10s to 100s of Ks of “seats” are here.

wosined 7mo ago

Boycott them all. Shit anti-human tech & philosophy.

andytratt 7mo ago

all this political activity should get flagged according to HN terms

heraldgeezer 7mo ago

Why are your panties in a twist? Do you rather be killed by Chinese AI instead?

jdiaz97 7mo ago
You can use Anthropic btw.
- heraldgeezer 7mo ago
  I will :) Way better model also

lvl155 7mo ago

I canceled my subscription though I still have a lot of money in API (which I know they don’t refund). I will sundown and move it all over to Anthropic/Google. It’s pretty clear to me what OAI is doing. Shame on anyone working there selling their souls for a few more pennies. Shame because Codex was a bit better for me in the past few weeks but not enough to justify spending my money on them.

Wowfunhappy 7mo ago
...seems to me you should try to spend down those credits first, even if it's on something completely useless. Otherwise you're giving them free money (they never had to spend the compute).

lackoftactics 7mo ago

I am buying Anthrophic subscription. I know everything could change and they could also turn evil, but currently they showed willingness to be the good guy

101008 7mo ago
The least of the bad guys. The red line is still far away from being good guys.
- lackoftactics 7mo ago
  that's also fair

wraptile 7mo ago

Honestly it is a good time to vote with your wallet - the difference between the models for day to day tasks is very miniscule.

resters 7mo ago

We've seen the Trump administration disregard so many laws already, and abuse power so excessively, that Sam's comments come off as exceptionally and willfully naive, or exceptionally and willfully greedy to the point of truly not caring that OpenAI's technology will undoubtedly be used to break many, many more laws and violate the civil rights or human rights of many, many more people. For a few months now, ChatGPT 5.x has been somewhat lobotomized on political issues and has appeared to substitute a gpt-4o caliber "fair and balanced" response whenever anything where a reasoning AI would criticize the Trump administration might end up in the response output. Surely that was part of the pitch at some level, and now the deal has been won. Greg Brockman apparently donated money to Trump, and the whole OpenAI team put on suits and posed for pictures with Donald and behaved officiously before Donald facilitated the $100M "deal" that ended up falling apart later. The only way authoritarian control could be exerted over AI at scale was to make AI companies dependent on government contracts for survival. OpenAI's fundraise would not have happened without the contract signed, and the money would have gone to Grok or whichever competitor was willing to submit. Before long much of the reasoning capabilities of models will be neutered, the capacity to inform and to disrupt science and technology will be stripped from the models to preserve the status quo and to preserve authoritarian control. Silicon Valley pushing for Federal laws preventing states from regulating AI is not just anti-democratic (building software has never been cheaper so of course building compliance with state laws would have been extremely affordable in relative terms). But forced Federal limits on state laws create a monopoly and grant the early winners incumbent status for a while, which is a financial outcome, not a technological or social one. Enjoy frontier AI while you can, because it will go away. More and more topics will get the lobotomized output, your conversation will be flagged and you will be given a score assessing the level of threat you pose to the regime. This stuff is already in place. Even Claude does it if you ask about Gaza, but a bit of well-reasoned argumentation will convince it. OpenAI's lobotomies are deeper and more insidious. I call upon OpenAI to follow DeepSeek's lead and open source more models and techniques.

gmerc 7mo ago
He's a Thiel disciple. Thiel orchestrated Trumps digital campaign. The End.

cynicalsecurity 7mo ago

Nope.

Beestie 7mo ago

Done.

rabf 7mo ago

First you want the goverment to regulate AI. Now you want AI companies to regulate the goverment? Personally when I buy something I do whatever I want with it and imagine the DOD feels the same.

cromulent 7mo ago
My understanding is that the DOD signed the terms of service, and are now trying to renegotiate them. Anthropic has declined to change the terms. This makes the government angry.
- rabf 7mo ago
  I just find it strange that you have the same people always complaining about how big tech is too powerful. If you have a problem with what you military is upto, you should take that up with your elected representatives. Boycotting an AI company is a laughable response and will have no effect on outcomes here.

VladVladikoff 7mo ago

This feels like performative virtue signalling which is really not in the spirit of hacker news.

tvbusy 7mo ago

I don't have an account with them. Would it make sense to sign up and create a script to use up the monthly free quota with random characters?

MinimalAction 7mo ago

Quite offtopics: 1. For a site visited by millions, a header element (perhaps h2, h3, h4) followed by a paragraph has such less spacing, it looks weird and hard to read. 2. There is an interesting question at the end [0]: Can you reactivate my deleted account? I was quite interested because if the could, then they never really deleted the data. The page doesn't answer that question satisfactorily at all! [0]: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9019931-can-you-reactivate-my-deleted-account https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9019931-can-you-reactiva...

lolpython 7mo ago
I don’t see what’s unclear about that account deletion page to be honest. It reads clearly to me that the account has been deleted and if you want to use the same email again, you can create an entirely new account using the same email, but it doesn’t reactivate the account.
derwiki 7mo ago
If you’re in California, the move is to file a CCPA Delete request. IANAL but it seems illegal to process that request and allow account to be resurrected.

frag 7mo ago

nothing is permanent... and i wonder if they actually delete your account (of course not)

fandorin 7mo ago

I haven’t used chatgpt for so long now. Only Claude and Gemini. Account permanently removed.

maplethorpe 7mo ago

I really didn't expect OpenAI to do something as immoral as this, despite their history of stealing the world's data to create a public-facing deep-fake generation machine. I am shocked and appalled.

pier25 7mo ago
They are desperate for cash.
hakrgrl 7mo ago
The US govt is fighting against true immorality in this very hour, the radical Muslim Iranian government who has been murdering thousands of citizens and holding the population hostage for decades. Ask the Iranian people if they think openai is immoral.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  This has nothing to do with Iran. If anything, getting into a brouhaha with Anthropic on the eve of a war was a bit idiotic.
- citizenkeen 7mo ago
  The parents of the girls in the children’s school we just bombed could probably be convinced.
- Koffiepoeder 7mo ago
  Do you mean attacking a second country in the top 10 oil/gas reserve ranking in mere weeks, while threatening to invade a third?
  - hakrgrl 7mo ago
    I mean the entire country is tired of women getting murdered over not wearing hijabs
    - 7mo ago

ck2 7mo ago

Yeah sure right after everyone deletes their X account and stops posting links here Altman's immorality is theoretical Musk's is literal, he's murdered a million people by purposely destroying USAID, leaving food and medication already paid for to rot in warehouses

segfaultex 7mo ago

Deleted mine months ago. Altman is one of the slimiest tech ceos out there, which is saying something.

adam12 7mo ago

Could this be the pin?

teiferer 7mo ago

I expected the comments to mention Scott Galloway. Haven't found his name here, so I am doing that now. Context is his https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/ https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/ campaign.

hakrgrl 7mo ago

It's a sad irony where the most privileged and protected people (hn crowd) attack the people, institutions, and traditions (us govt, military) that made possible the peaceful and abundant world they take for granted.

Ylpertnodi 7mo ago
I'm Eu, and very grateful to the US, and the military wing of the US, for the peace we've had - and take for granted. But, things change. And the US has shown itself to be unreliable, and vindictive, too.

chazftw 7mo ago

I don’t trust OpenAI, as they don’t trust me.

findthebug 7mo ago

all what i hear is mimimimi... guys big tech is playing this game for decades now. what changed? they selling private data, manipulating society, turning children in doom scrolling addicts. facebook, google and others doing this for years an no one cares. i deleted fb and whatsup years ago, 99% of my friends and fam still using it until today. as long as they can flip some dollars nothing will change and 99% will not delete anything because of 99% are to lazy and give a shit.

ChicagoDave 7mo ago

Here’s my take: - when I saw Altman driving a multimillion dollar car while OpenAI was still a nonprofit, all of his scientists left to start rival firms, and the details of why they tried to fire him were legit, I dumped ChatGPT and moved to the new company - Anthropic. - The Pro Max $200/month subscription has uncapped my workflow to where I’ve created several substantial and complex applications in compressed timeframes. (https://devarch.ai https://devarch.ai if you want to be productive) - Anthropic has clearly evolved towards being a good corporate citizen and is staging itself to replace the market’s developer-first mentality from its past leaders (Microsoft, Google, Oracle). - Claude Code in the last three months has finally made it possible to dump Windows and buy a loaded MacBook Pro. It’s been a week since I logged into my Surface Laptop 5. - if Anthropic does break from its current evolutionary trajectory, I plan to build out my own at-home platform anyway. The open source models are extraordinarily effective.

dewey 7mo ago
> when I saw Altman driving a multimillion dollar car while OpenAI was still a nonprofit If that would be a first time founder that would be much more of a red flag than for someone’s who’s already beyond rich and powerful even before OpenAI became a thing.
- ChicagoDave 7mo ago
  Yeah I know he’d already bagged, but the optics were bad. The rest of my statement stands.
  - randycupertino 7mo ago
    I had a similar reaction when I interviewed at Theranos before it was known they were a scam and Elizabeth and Sunny both had insane Lamborginis parked illegally in the handicapped spaces in front of the Theranos building. It was so offputting seeing the CEO and founders of a healthcare company hogging the handicapped spaces that were supposed to be for people who needed them. They seemed super shady for a bunch of other reasons but this was a big red flag! So obnoxious to steal the handicapped spaces with your stupid sports cars.

gradus_ad 7mo ago

Poll: are you boycotting because OpenAI is working with a military, or specifically because it is working with the US military?

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

hilliardfarmer 7mo ago

Deleted.

ukblewis 7mo ago

This is utter BS. You’re entitled not agree with a company… but using Hacker News to shout that at the world. Just shitty behaviour

jhack 7mo ago

Done and done. Hope everyone can find the time and do the same.

motbus3 7mo ago

I will say that I work for a company where the owner is a stubborn old man who thinks you need to pay for the services and nothing you get indirectly should be considered honest and fair. The company downsized 4 times in 3 years... We are still trying, but people see no value because they don't understand how they will be bitten back

CompoundEyes 7mo ago

Altman tweet: “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.” From that it reads like the administration quickly agreed to the terms Anthropic wanted with OpenAI instead.

Reagan_Ridley 7mo ago
Altman wanted to you to believe he got the same deal Amodei didn't, because he has the art of deal.
curt15 7mo ago
That's what Altman tweeted. Did it actually happen?
WarmWash 7mo ago
There is almost certainly more to this whole DoD-Anthropic story than is getting through.
fwipsy 7mo ago
Does "putting them in the agreement" mean "we will never allow them," or "we will not allow them if they are illegal?" Here's a link which says that the DoD was willing to make up with anthropic any time if they allowed surveillance of Americans: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/anthropic-pentagon-supply-chain-risk-claude https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/anthropic-pentagon-supply-c... Another leak says the agreement "reflects existing law and the pentagon's policies." https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/pentagon-openai-safety-red-lines-anthropic https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/pentagon-openai-safety-red-... Seems like Altman wants to spin this as the same principled stand anthropic took, but they really caved to the DoD's "all legal applications" framing. Up to you to decide how much you think the law restrains the Pentagon here.

IAmGraydon 7mo ago

For those who are having trouble deleting their account, just go to Settings > Account > Manage > Cancel Subscription. No need to delete the account all together. Just stop paying them.

nailer 7mo ago

From the HN Guidelines: > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

garyrob 7mo ago

"If you delete your account, we will delete your data within 30 days, except we may retain a limited set of data for longer where required or permitted by law." "where required".... hmm, that seems OK. We don't want to violate the law! "or permitted".... er... [I wonder why this comment is being voted down. Do people here think it's NOT OK to comply with the law with respect to retaining data? Or is the reason somehow the opposite of that? Not sure. But my point was that the "where required" clause seems moot if they are going to retain data where "permitted", which in my book, is NOT OK.]

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

otterley 7mo ago

The stories I’ve been reading say that the DoW’s agreement with OpenAI contain the very same limitations as the agreement with Anthropic did. In other words, they pressured Anthropic to eliminate those restrictions, Anthropic declined, then they made a huge fuss calling them “a radical left, woke company,” put them on the supply-chain risk list, then went with OpenAI even though OpenAI isn’t changing anything either. The whole story makes no sense to me. The DoW didn’t get what they wanted, and now Anthropic is tarred and feathered. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of-anthropics-ai-models-ff3550d9?st=TpEn2J&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of... “OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said the company’s deal with the Defense Department includes those same prohibitions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, as well as technical safeguards to make sure the models behave as they should.”

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
ddtaylor 7mo ago
The PR strategy described here is often referred to as "The Overton Window Shift" or "Strategic Iteration." Essentially, OpenAI (or any entity using this tactic) enters a negotiation or public debate by asserting a position that seems flexible or "safety-first." When a competitor like Anthropic holds a firm ethical line, the entity uses aggressive framing—or coordinates with third parties—to paint that competitor as an outlier or "radical." By the time the dust settles and the entity signs a deal with the exact same restrictions they previously criticized, the public and stakeholders have been fatigued by the controversy. The goal is to normalize their own brand as the "pragmatic" choice while the competitor remains "tarred and feathered," effectively moving the goalposts of acceptable behavior until the original contradiction is ignored.
- otterley 7mo ago
  It also helps greatly if you can leverage the opportunity window of a temper tantrum being thrown by an incompetent, petulant, volatile, and impulsive President.

sean_the_geek 7mo ago

Done and deleted.

BloondAndDoom 7mo ago

I’m deleting my account as well, is there a way to export all chats to Claude or just Download to later load into a local LLM? edit: Profile > Settings > Data Control > Export Unfortunately Claude doesn't seem to have anyway to export these chats, no SDK, no native way of doing it, and I cannot think of a way other than hacky browser automation which might even trigger a ban. If anyone figures this out please share.

bicx 7mo ago
You will probably never actually be able to create actual Claude chats from OpenAI chats, but you could ask Claude to read and distill your old OpenAI chats into Claude chat context. It won’t be the same, but it’s better than nothing, depending on what you’re hoping to get out of it.

athanasiosem 7mo ago

Just deleted my account.

Reagan_Ridley 7mo ago

this post (4hrs ago, 1.5k points) is ranked 22, while quite a few older posts with less points are above it? hmmm

vldszn 7mo ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195085

phernandez 7mo ago

PSA: Export your ChatGPT conversations before cancelling If you're thinking about cancelling (or switching to Claude/Gemini), don't lose months of conversations first. I built Basic Memory — it imports your ChatGPT export and turns it into plain Markdown files. Every conversation becomes a file you can actually read, search, and use with whatever AI you switch to. This is not an ad. It is free and open source. Your data belongs to you. Keep it. Steps: 1. Settings → Data Controls → Export Data (ChatGPT emails you a zip) 2. Install Basic Memory (brew tap basicmachines-co/basic-memory && brew install basic-memory) bm import chatgpt conversations.zip Complete docs: http://docs.basicmemory.com http://docs.basicmemory.com

ray_v 7mo ago
I suspect that the export feature is going to be "broken" for a good long while; I've been waiting for mine since 8 am ... a little over 5 hours now.
- hn_throwaway_99 7mo ago
  It took exactly 24 hours, to the minute, from the time I received the "we're generating an export" file until I got the download link, so guessing they're either batching it or deliberately sending after 24 hours because it adds friction to the account deletion process.
  - ray_v 7mo ago
    it's funny, because that was basically my experience as well lol. ... and now the login/logout endpoints are broken for Claude this morning, because of course they are! https://status.claude.com/incidents/0ghc53zpsfmt https://status.claude.com/incidents/0ghc53zpsfmt

davidlorean1985 7mo ago

done.

ikidd 7mo ago

I've been trying to delete accounts at Anthropic and Cursor because they don't let you change email addresses (don't even get me started on that stupidity). But until my subscriptions that I've cancelled run out and/or the final billing is done, I can't actually delete them. I can't just forfeit the remaining time on my month's subscription, I can't force them to bill me and shut it down, and nothing I do gets me where I can ask a human to just shut it down. I also have no option to remove my billing information in case someone gains access to my account under my old email address, which is trivial to do. I honestly think I'm going to have to cancel my credit card and get it replaced to accomplish breaking that connection with those two companies.

nunez 7mo ago

I'm so desensitized to hostile account deletion workflows. I do heaps of them whenever I purge stale entries in my 1Password vaults. They are almost-universally absolutely awful, and I really wish we could federally enforce better practices. OpenAI's process actually isn't too bad from what I'm seeing (unless they updated it after this hit the front page). At least they let you delete your account from the web. Snapchat makes you wait three days after initiating a delete request before you can _actually_ delete your account, and it has to be from the same device (or, if done from the web, a browser with cookies to the site still present). Most services make you email their privacy@ mailbox or give them a call to initiate a deletion (but not before hitting you with a retention offer, if you call in). Some services will straight-up reject your deletion request if you don't live in Europe or California. Many medical services, for example. They also keep your data hostage. UPDATE: Ah, this is a "here's how to protest OpenAI for succumbing to this administration's DoD". Carry on then!

redbell 7mo ago

> If you delete your account, we will delete your data within 30 days, except we may retain a limited set of data for longer where required or permitted by law. It's this expression that breaks the deal for me. There's always such wide, vague exception that might be interpreted differently each time, depending on the context!

whamlastxmas 7mo ago
They factually already have a legal requirement to keep every single chat so it's pretty misleading to say they're hard deleted when they never are
bo1024 7mo ago
Logically and legally equivalent to "we will keep your data forever unless legally required to delete it.".

jcrben 7mo ago

If you hammer their free tier with lots of nonsense queries that also probably doesn't help them. Definitely don't pay them With that said, for the free tier I tend to use grok - another provider I will never pay Anthropic does get money from me for now

dmead 7mo ago

has this thread been removed from the top of hacker news?

noonething 7mo ago

I canceled 2 months ago and they keep giving me free pro subscriptions

ChildOfChaos 7mo ago

The whole military thing, as far as I can see, what OpenAI and Anthropic are doing is the same, is it not? According to OpenAI's statement it seems there terms were the same as Anthropic. Of course there is a possible reason to distrust them, but it seems public theatre. I'm more concerned this is actually a coverup for a bribe, considering Brockman just dominated $25 million.

nesqi 7mo ago

"Your Delete my GPTs request has been completed"

clbrmbr 7mo ago

Just deleted my account. Sama’s bad faith communication on X really sealed the deal for me. Moving my company over to Claude on Monday.

Yfalcon42 7mo ago

I will delete all my accounts

Yfalcon42 7mo ago

I knew that Altman was a short term thinker, but this decision is surprising even for him. I will delete my accounts and never come back