RIP disable ChatGPT history (2023-2024)

Why does OpenAI want to keep your data forever?

As of April 25th, OpenAI will retain all ChatGPT (except Team and Enterprise) prompts indefinitely. That’s because they removed the ability to disable chat history for Plus and below versions. I couldn’t find any announcement about this change, either.

Why is OpenAI indefinitely retaining the information most people put into ChatGPT?

You can still opt-out of continuously training the model with your inputs by going to Settings > Data controls > Improve the model for everyone and setting it to “Off.”

And according to their Privacy Policy:

When you use our Services, we collect Personal Information that is included in the input, file uploads, or feedback that you provide to our Services (“Content”). 

We don’t “sell” Personal Information or “share” Personal Information for cross-contextual behavioral advertising.

Some commentators on my LinkedIn post on this topic suggested OpenAI might be planning to sell anonymized data, but this also strikes me as a strange business decision. That’s because:

• It would require a difficult de-identification process (removing all personal identifiers from huge volumes of input would be extremely expensive).

• OpenAI still couldn’t train its models on the results (they say they won’t in their terms of use).

• The people who buy the data could train competitive (to OpenAI) models.

So if they aren’t training on it, selling it, or sharing it, the only legitimate reason I can think of for retaining it is for abuse monitoring.

But 30 days (the previous retention period with chat history disabled) seems like plenty of time to do this, especially because OpenAI reserved the right to extend it for legal holds, etc.

Frankly, if I were OpenAI, I wouldn’t want to retain any data that I’m not using for training because it:

• costs money

• increases cyber risk

• opens me up to costly discovery if a ChatGPT user gets sued

I’m sure some folks will say “Oh they really are going to turn around and train on this data later after they said they wouldn’t.” But that would put them in perilous legal territory because they specifically allow for opting out of training in their terms of use.

What can you do to avoid indefinite retention of your prompts?

1. Hit the risk avoidance button and stop using ChatGPT

Some have suggested that exit is the best choice here, to make a point to OpenAI. I admire the principled nature of this suggestions, but it’s a bridge too far for me (and probably most people).

2. Upgrade to Team or Enterprise so you can still disable chat history

I’ve done the former for StackAware, but that is $30/month/user (2 user minimum), which is a little pricey. Enterprise is $108,000/year ($60/month/user, 150 user minimum). That’s way out of reach for most companies.

3. Use the mobile app

As of today, when using the latest version you could still disable chat history. This might be a legacy feature that will eliminated with the next update, though. (Update 28 April 2024: disable chat history has been removed from the mobile app).

4. Use Temporary Chats if and when they become available

Shortly before making this change, OpenAI published a support article describing a feature called “Temporary Chat.” This appears to reproduce the functionality of disabling chat history, but with a major caveat:

We are rolling out to a small portion of ChatGPT free and Plus users this week to learn how useful it is. We will share plans for broader roll out soon.

So it’s not clear if this will ever become a generally available feature. If it does, here is what it might look like:

5. Use the API

This still has a 30 day retention period.

Using it will be more challenging for non-technical users, and maintaining conversation history requires a few more steps. It also changes the billing model from “all you can eat” for a fixed fee to a metered approach.

6. Use the Playground

This is a little more user friendly and allows for continuous conversations, including with fine-tuned models and assistants. I also got OpenAI to confirm the Playground follows the API retention period (30 days).

AI governance isn’t getting any less complex

This is a major change (for the worse, in my opinion) of OpenAI’s privacy and security posture. But things are constantly in flux.

Adapt accordingly.

And if you need help understanding:

• Data retention periods

• Implications of AI training on your company’s data

• Cybersecurity and governance best practices for AI-powered companies

let us know. That’s exactly what StackAware does best.