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ChatGPT users shocked to learn their chats were in Google search results

1 August 2025 at 17:21

Faced with mounting backlash, OpenAI removed a controversial ChatGPT feature that caused some users to unintentionally allow their private—and highly personal—chats to appear in search results.

Fast Company exposed the privacy issue on Wednesday, reporting that thousands of ChatGPT conversations were found in Google search results and likely only represented a sample of chats "visible to millions." While the indexing did not include identifying information about the ChatGPT users, some of their chats did share personal details—like highly specific descriptions of interpersonal relationships with friends and family members—perhaps making it possible to identify them, Fast Company found.

OpenAI's chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, explained on X that all users whose chats were exposed opted in to indexing their chats by clicking a box after choosing to share a chat.

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ChatGPT’s new Study Mode is designed to help you learn, not just give answers

29 July 2025 at 18:00

The rise of large language models like ChatGPT has led to widespread concern that "everyone is cheating their way through college," as a recent New York magazine article memorably put it. Now, OpenAI is rolling out a new "Study Mode" that it claims is less about providing answers or doing the work for students and more about helping them "build [a] deep understanding" of complex topics.

Study Mode isn't a new ChatGPT model but a series of "custom system instructions" written for the LLM "in collaboration with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts to reflect a core set of behaviors that support deeper learning," OpenAI said. Instead of the usual summary of a subject that stock ChatGPT might give—which one OpenAI employee likened to "a mini textbook chapter"—Study Mode slowly rolls out new information in a "scaffolded" structure. The mode is designed to ask "guiding questions" in the Socratic style and to pause for periodic "knowledge checks" and personalized feedback to make sure the user understands before moving on.

It's unknown how many students will use this guided learning tool instead of just asking ChatGPT to generate answers from the start.

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OpenAI’s most capable AI model, GPT-5, may be coming in August

25 July 2025 at 19:59

On Thursday, The Verge reported that OpenAI is preparing to launch GPT-5 as early as August, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. The report comes five months after CEO Sam Altman first laid out a roadmap for the next-generation AI model that would unify the company's various AI capabilities. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed in a post on X last week that the company plans to release GPT-5 "soon."

According to The Verge's Tom Warren, Microsoft engineers began preparing server capacity for GPT-5 as early as late May, but testing and development challenges pushed the timeline back. During an appearance on Theo Von's podcast this week, Altman demonstrated the model's capabilities by having it answer a question he couldn't. "I put it in the model, this is GPT-5, and it answered it perfectly," Altman said, saying it gave him a "weird feeling" to see the AI model answer a question that he couldn't.

GPT-5 has been a highly anticipated release since the launch of GPT-4 in March 2023. In fact, we first wrote about rumors of GPT-5's launch in March 2024, but it appears that GPT-5 did not materialize last year because the company saved the "GPT-5" name for a future release.

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Sam Altman warns there’s no legal confidentiality when using ChatGPT as a therapist

25 July 2025 at 17:33
In response to a question about how AI works with today's legal system, Altman said one of the problems of not yet having a legal or policy framework for AI is that there's no legal confidentiality for users' conversations.

ChatGPT’s new AI agent can browse the web and create PowerPoint slideshows

17 July 2025 at 20:41

On Thursday, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Agent, a new feature that lets the company's AI assistant complete multi-step tasks by controlling its own web browser. The update merges capabilities from OpenAI's earlier Operator tool and the Deep Research feature, allowing ChatGPT to navigate websites, run code, and create documents while users maintain control over the process.

The feature marks OpenAI's latest entry into what the tech industry calls "agentic AI"—systems that can take autonomous multi-step actions on behalf of the user. OpenAI says users can ask Agent to handle requests like assembling and purchasing a clothing outfit for a particular occasion, creating PowerPoint slide decks, planning meals, or updating financial spreadsheets with new data.

The system uses a combination of web browsers, terminal access, and API connections to complete these tasks, including "ChatGPT Connectors" that integrate with apps like Gmail and GitHub.

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