Did you know some ChatGPT chats are searchable by Google? No, I didn’t know that either until I discovered that it’s quite possible to search other people’s ChatGPT conversations using nothing more sophisticated than the standard Google search bar and the site: search command.
To do it, just go to Google.com, place your cursor in the search box, and type in site:chatgpt.com/share followed by what you want to search for, and you’ll have access to all the public ChatGPT conversations on the subject.
So, typing site:chatgpt.com/share Elon Musk will show all public ChatGPT chats that mention Elon Musk, for example.
The key thing for this to work is that the original ChatGPT conversation has to have been made public. So, how do you do that? And more importantly, how do you make sure that you’re not doing it by accident?
Share and share alike
The answer lies in the Share button, which you’ll find at the top right of the ChatGPT page in a browser window, or accessible from the drop-down menu that appears when you tap the name of the LLM you’ve selected in the mobile ChatGPT app (in the middle of the top bar).
When you hit the ‘Share link’ button that appears, ChatGPT generates a URL for your chat, and that’s the point where it becomes public.
The text that appears when you hit Share clearly says “Anyone with the URL will be able to view your shared chat”, however what it also means, and what it doesn’t make entirely clear, is that Google can also now incorporate your chat into its search engine.
A public URL
So, you don’t have to worry that your ChatGPT chats are being made public without your knowledge or permission, but you should be aware that if you ever decide to use the Share feature to create a URL of your chat that you want to send to just one person, your whole chat has now become public.
It’s also worth noting that nothing you add to the chat after the point where you hit ‘Share link’ will be added to the chat available at the specified URL.
Finally, a word of warning: looking through other people’s chats that they’ve shared publicly is not for the fainthearted! You’re very likely to encounter some NSFW language and some generally odd behaviour. And once people discover that their chats become searchable, I wonder if it might actually encourage more strange behavior.
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