Comment by michaelt
19 hours ago
> Also why the sudden interest? Amazon Alexa snips have been used before in court/investigation and this is not new.
As I understand it, some people treat chatgpt like a close personal friend and therapist. Confiding their deepest secrets and things like that.
Is this any different than people asking their deepest darkest questions to google?
It is very different. In one case you actively have to prod a "neutral" machine to get your dark curiosity satiated, in the other case the machine is designed to draw it out of you.
Same difference as: "Allowing minors into casinos... is it any different from letting them play cards with their friends at home with their pocket money?"
> in the other case the machine is designed to draw it out of you.
I take issue with the "is designed to" phrase. That implies an intentionality upon OpenAI (and others) to create something that acts as a therapist or confidant. It is designed to respond to you in a way that you ask it to. The agency for confiding deep secrets to a cloud service is entirely upon the human typing in the text.
If one doesn't try to make it your friend, it doesn't try to act like it.