OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company behind the large language model ChatGPT, revealed on Friday that a bug exposed some users’ personal information and credit card details to others using the service. While the bug was initially spotted on Monday, OpenAI claimed that it affected only a ‘small percentage’ of users and only involved chat titles in their own conversation history. However, on Friday, the company admitted that the issue was much deeper than previously thought.

According to the announcement, the bug allowed some users to see another active user’s first and last name, email address, payment address, the last four digits of a credit card number, and credit card expiration date. OpenAI said that the bug affected 1.2 percent of ChatGPT Plus subscribers, but it is unclear how many users are paying for the service out of its roughly 100 million users.

The news of the leak has offset OpenAI’s massive upgrade to ChatGPT, which allows it to access the internet to provide users with real-time data. ChatGPT was founded in Silicon Valley in 2015 by a group of American angel investors, including current CEO Sam Altman, and is a large language model that has been trained on a massive amount of text data, allowing it to generate responses to a given prompt. People across the world have used the platform to write human-like poems, texts, and various other written works.

On Monday, a user on Twitter warned others to ‘be careful’ of the chatbot which had shown them other people’s conversation topics. The user shared an image of their list, which showed a number of titles including ‘Girl Chases Butterflies’, ‘Books on human behavior’, and ‘Boy Survives Solo Adventure’, but it was unclear which of these were not theirs. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed on Wednesday that the company was experiencing a ‘significant issue’ that threatened the privacy of conversations on its platform.

The bug, which has been patched, was discovered in the Redis client open-source library, redis-py. While OpenAI claims that the number of users whose data was actually revealed to someone else is extremely low, the company is still working to ensure the safety of its users’ data.

Despite the security issue, OpenAI has introduced plugins that enable the chatbot to interact with the internet and third-party websites, providing users with sports scores, stock prices, dinner reservations, and more. The first plugins for ChatGPT were created by Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram, and Zapier. Microsoft’s Bing API also includes a new plugin, allowing ChatGPT to search for current information on the internet.

Industry experts are praising the upgrade, saying ChatGPT will make ‘thousands of websites completely obsolete.’ However, OpenAI must address the privacy concerns raised by the recent bug to maintain user trust and confidence in its platform.

Despite OpenAI’s recent upgrades and plugins, the security breach raises serious concerns about the privacy and safety of ChatGPT users’ personal information. OpenAI’s statement that the number of users whose data was actually revealed is “extremely low” is not particularly reassuring. Even if only a small percentage of users were affected, the potential harm caused by the exposure of personal information and credit card details should not be underestimated.

The fact that the bug was discovered in the Redis client open-source library, redis-py, suggests that OpenAI needs to do more to ensure that third-party libraries it uses are secure and regularly updated. It is not clear whether OpenAI conducted regular security audits of its own code or third-party libraries it uses. The company’s lack of transparency on this issue only adds to users’ concerns.

In addition to the security breach, there are also ethical considerations to take into account. ChatGPT’s ability to generate human-like responses has led to concerns about the potential misuse of the platform, particularly for the creation of fake news or disinformation campaigns. While OpenAI has taken steps to address these concerns, such as limiting access to the platform, the recent security breach highlights the need for ongoing vigilance and oversight.

Furthermore, the rapid pace of technological advancements in the field of artificial intelligence and natural language processing raises questions about the potential long-term impact of ChatGPT and other similar platforms on society as a whole. As these technologies become more advanced, it is important that their developers and users consider the potential consequences and ensure that they are used in ways that promote positive outcomes and avoid harm.

While the recent upgrades to ChatGPT are impressive, the security breach and ethical considerations associated with the platform highlight the need for ongoing vigilance and oversight. OpenAI must take steps to ensure the privacy and safety of its users, conduct regular security audits of its code and third-party libraries, and continue to address ethical concerns associated with the platform. As artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies become increasingly advanced, it is essential that developers and users consider their potential impact on society and take responsibility for ensuring positive outcomes.