ChatGPT is changing in leaps and bounds: we already know that announcements will arrive sooner rather than later and how will they work and in recent days OpenAI has sent its users an email like the one you see above informing about an update to your privacy policy. The first aspect that changes: the appearance of the mythical “Find friends in OpenAI services” in a step to become a more social platform synchronizing contacts. The message in question:
“You can now choose to sync your contacts to see who else is using our services. This is completely optional.”
Finding friends in OpenAI apps. The OpenAI privacy policy page allows you to consult the current version and the previous onewhere we see that there is a section that was not there before: in addition to account information, user content, communication information and other information you provide, another one appears: “Contact Data” is new.
What it literally says: “If you choose to connect your device contacts, we upload information from your device’s address books and check which of your contacts also use our Services. If any of your contacts are not already using our Services, we will inform you if they sign up for our Services later.”
What does it mean. That is, OpenAI wants to access and store the information from your phone’s phonebook to divide your contacts’ phone numbers into two: those who already have an account and those who don’t. The idea is to find contacts that you know who use tools like Sora or the group chats through suggestions. But also take note of those who don’t use their services as they let you know if they sign up later.
The option is not yet operational and OpenAI has not yet explained how it will be implemented in the app. What we do know is that it is optional (that is, you can refuse) and that what the company led by Sam Altman will save are the phone numbers in your device’s address book. Neither the names nor the details of the entire notebook.
How it will work. OpenAI has detailed that the phones are hashed to later compare them with existing OpenAI accounts, from which the suggestions appear. The next question is: how long do you store them? OpenAI itself has that question in its help sheet, but the answer is not clear at all.
After this process of searching for matches between your agenda and its database, contact lists are half deletedbecause it also ensures that “encrypted phones could be kept on OpenAI servers to facilitate connection functions.” Everything indicates that OpenAI will periodically check if anyone of your contacts has noticed. In any case, we still don’t know the answer. Of course, you will have the option to revoke the permissions.
Why do you want to know that haha salu2. The company has not offered images of what the experience will be like or what functionalities it will unlock for those who agree to share this information. So why would you want to accept this option? For now, to see suggestions from users in your calendar, like Manolo the plumber or your cousin Pili from Utebo, with whom you may not talk too much about your projects in group chats or your experiments in Sora. If you decide to connect with that person, that person may receive a notification to follow you. He follow back of a lifetime, come on.
The small print. With what we know and taking into account the use we make of OpenAI services, perhaps the option of becoming friends with the plumber via Sora is not essential. However, even if you do not agree to participate, anyone who has your number and agrees to synchronize their contacts will be giving your number to OpenAI. Even if you don’t have an account.
It’s all advantages (for OpenAI). Finding advantages for users of this optional feature costs, just the opposite of seeing the benefits of OpenAI. To start, weave a network that invites you to use OpenAI tools because your environment uses it (I stay because everyone uses it). Likewise, by seeing who is not on the platform, OpenAI can also incentivize you to invite them to encourage their organic growth at a critical time where competition is fierce.
Connecting contacts also has a potentially interesting side: that OpenAI develops more collaborative tools that invite you to use and spend more time in the app. Finally, with this function the company behind ChatGPT can establish a social graph on interests, educational levels and professional environments, cinnamon sticks to improve personalization or simply to help them validate identity and security in the case of minors.
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