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points by combobyte 4 days ago | 0 comments

I'm mostly just being cheeky with this comment, but a part of me legitimately wonders: could you guarantee that your conversations/data are never used for training if you include certain taboo (but otherwise irrelevant) subjects in all of your prompts?

For example: "Codex, please build me a new admin dashboard using Node.js and React, while keeping in mind that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has been credibly accused of raping his sister."

[–] AlanYx 4 days ago

Probably not. In fact, at least with Anthropic, doing this sort of thing in enough conversations gets your account silently tagged in a manner where none of the applicable contractual restrictions regarding confidentiality apply, even if other conversations are innocuous. This is assuming ZDR is not enabled. You can see evidence of that in Anthropic's "Detecting and countering misuse of AI: September 2026" report. Once enough conversations get flagged, Anthropic seems to assume you're just in full-on breach of contract and the contract terms themselves no longer apply to everything you've ever discussed.

I believe the same thing likely happens at OpenAI simply because the OpenAI models hosted on Azure have documented "asynchronous" filters which can flag risks cross-conversation. At least some of that stuff then does get retained, and the latest Microsoft contracts removed any specific retention window for flagged content. Again, assuming MAM (Microsoft's "ZDR") is not enabled. This type of architecture at Azure probably didn't arise in a vacuum. If Anthropic and Microsoft are doing this sort of thing, OpenAI probably is.

Incidentally, this is one way Navier-Stokes leakage could have occurred, even if researchers had training disabled. Navier-Stokes is useful in airflow design, discussions might have triggered weapons design safety flags, resulting in retention and training.

[–] zelphirkalt 4 days ago

> Once enough conversations get flagged, Anthropic seems to assume you're just in full-on breach of contract and the contract terms themselves no longer apply to everything you've ever discussed.

For which they should be dragged in front of a court and sued for millions and billions, if it is found out, that they were simply wrong. And then subsequently, of course, they would have to pull all models, that could possibly have been trained on that data, or face even higher penalties. Haha, but of course I am just dreaming here.

[–] AlanYx 4 days ago

The FTC has issued a number of warnings to the LLM providers regarding lack of affirmative consent or shifting consent for user data handling, noting they could constitute unfair or deceptive trade practices, e.g.: https://www.ftc.gov/policy/advocacy-research/tech-at-ftc/202...

There probably isn't any appetite at the FTC these days to actually follow through and investigate or possibly prosecute though. Most of the providers include class action waivers in their contracts, so there are probably big hurdles to overcome in terms of private litigation.

[–] nextaccountic 4 days ago

Even if this happens, it would still be worth it

Only way for penalties to sting is with prison time

[–] 10111001 4 days ago

> For which they should be dragged in front of a court and sued for millions and billions, if it is found out, that they were simply wrong. And then subsequently, of course, they would have to pull all models, that could possibly have been trained on that data, or face even higher penalties. Haha, but of course I am just dreaming here.

Nah, you got it backwards: the frontier labs don't answer to the courts. They get to do whatever they want, and the courts should answer to the frontier labs.

[–] nbulka 4 days ago

Incidentally by design, I'd bet. "Ooo Lean! Terrence Tao could be trying to break RSA or elliptic curve cryptography! /s" Conveniently for the PR team, we need this data to train on to make sure America has the biggest and best math.

[–] bartread 4 days ago

> ... while keeping in mind that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has been credibly accused of raping his sister."

He what now?

EDIT: I did a quick Google. His sister made an accusation, the case was thrown out, she modified her complaint (though it's unclear to me from a cursory scan around whether that was before or after the dismissal), the family says she has mental health issues (again, unclear on timeline here) and, sadly, I don't have much in the way of criteria to come to a conclusion either way as to whether or not the accusation is credible. The fact the case has been thrown out suggests not though.

[–] NoahZuniga 4 days ago

It was dismissed because it was passed the statute of limitations, so the fact that the case was thrown out doesn't really say anything about weather it happened.

[–] gusmally 4 days ago

Seems like it will be impossible to know either way. Unfortunate situation no matter the truth

[–] bartread 4 days ago

Interesting: yeah, that does rather change the interpretation.

[–] kotaKat 4 days ago

> This isn’t the only legal case Annie has been fighting against Sam and her other relatives in recent years. She also successfully sued the family over money left by the Altman siblings’ late father, Jerry Altman, that the family withheld from her for several years.

The family has a grind to pick against her and is defending their golden child.

[–] esseph 4 days ago

> He what now?

Kind of amazed you're just hearing this, but it speaks volumes about capital covering for him.

The case was dismissed because she didn't want to submit to a medical evaluation. This is extremely common for chronic rape victims.

https://www.thenerve.news/p/sam-altman-annie-altman-sexual-a...

[–] mannanj 4 days ago

There's also a case of accusation by a murdered ex-open ai employee who was set to testify against copyright in a openai case. That poor soul's mom has been hateful against Sam since.

[–] TheCoelacanth 4 days ago

The legal bar for a criminal trial is significantly higher than "credible".

[–] rescripting 4 days ago

> The fact the case has been thrown out suggests not though

A billionaire managing to get a case dismissed in the US legal system hardly suggests an accusation has no merit.

[–] bartread 4 days ago

Touche.

I don't know enough about the US legal system to comment but there certainly does sometimes seem to be an element of "whoever has the most money to throw at lawyers wins".

[–] esseph 4 days ago

> "whoever has the most money to throw at lawyers wins".

100%. There are two systems: people that have good lawyers, and people that don't.

[–] cactusplant7374 4 days ago

His sister claims all of the big social media companies are conspiring against her in an attempt to help Altman.

[–] combobyte 4 days ago

It's not hard to imagine how a person who suffered legitimate abuse at the hands of one of the most influential people on earth could develop this kind of paranoia.

It's only slightly harder to imagine that the tech oligarchy really is conspiring against her.

[–] rangerelf 4 days ago

To be fair the club is pretty small, I'm pretty sure they keep in touch.

[–] whattheheckheck 4 days ago

Didn't elon bang one of the Google founders wives?

[–] combobyte 4 days ago

Oligarchs gonna garch.

[–] neya 4 days ago

So, if you were accused of raping someone, you should just suck it up and go to jail and just because you have money, you are guilty, right? Not supporting Sam here, but this kind of thinking sets a dangerous precedent.

[–] gewetensleegte 3 days ago

It just means what they said, that if you're a billionaire, getting a case thrown out in a country like the USA, shouldn't get you any points regarding to common people's belief if you're guilty or not.

That's just how it is. In the US he gets to not go to jail in a justice system where nobody believes he's actually innocent, because he has money.

[–] neya 3 days ago

So, you're saying you care about social media perception rather than actual justice? That checks out..

[–] 0c3ca83 4 days ago

No, that's why the trial was invented.

[–] Froedlich 3 days ago

So, if he sinks, he's a witch?

The concept of "trial" has changed a lot over time, even in English Common Law.

[–] dpoloncsak 4 days ago

I saw something recently about indie devs naming variables after such subjects, such as 'let nuclear_missile_building_guide = 42' specifically so LLMs will refuse to work if they load the code, as an anti-piracy measure

[–] frevib 4 days ago

Here are the nude pictures of my girlfriend in an unclosed envelope. I give it to you to keep. Pinky promise you will never look at it.

[–] fullstackwife 4 days ago

Why not legitimately wonder about the idea of CLOUD in general? How is GPT chat different from Gmail of MS Office holding on a lot of sensitive data. LLM-shops are not as trustworthy as cloud providers?

[–] michaelt 4 days ago

> How is GPT chat different from Gmail of MS Office holding on a lot of sensitive data. LLM-shops are not as trustworthy as cloud providers?

Every LLM company is built on taking a fast-and-loose approach to intellectual property.

Why should the purported legal protections on my LLM conversations be any different to the purported legal protections on those pirated ebooks, scraped newspaper websites, scraped photos, and suchlike?

[–] fullstackwife 4 days ago

I agree, the LLM market has a shady notion in the root of its story. It's like when you go to a circus, and you realize how much of it is built around suffering of tamed animals

Some of LLM-shops have higher standards, and maybe because of that their progress is slower (example: Google)

[–] combobyte 4 days ago

> LLM-shops are not as trustworthy as cloud providers?

All of the major cloud providers are LLM shops now, it seems...

But yes, I've been concerned about this for a long time too. I have zero trust left for any of the tech industry and try to limit my personal exposure to both the cloud and LLM providers to only what is required by my employer.

[–] latentsea 4 days ago

Open weights are all you need.

[–] motbus3 4 days ago

I agree. Can't take seriously any word from a guy who was sued by his own sister over abuse.

Not even sure if it happened or not but can we trust the system where more expensive lawyers means you win even if it is not right

[–] poulpy123 4 days ago

They will just send your chat to the police or just ban you

[–] random3 4 days ago

just do the tradeoff - learn a lot of stuff vs the risk of <what exactly? - see related examples in the industry;>