It still boggles my mind that in this day and age most people use the one search engine that keeps the most copious records of everything that is entered and that ties that to the most information any corporation probably has about any random person. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone moved to using the NSA search engine if they ever came out with one.
Just for general peace of mind, use a privacy-oriented search engine. I use leta.mullvad.net or search.brave.com usually. I haven't used Google in years. And if you just happen to have a curiosity about something fringe that might be misinterpreted in the wrong circumstances, download an LLM and use it locally.
ChatGPT and Google are different types of engines. I wonder if they will make ChatGPT submit flagged questions to authorities automatically. Since the questions are more like conversations with clear intentions, they can get very clear signals.
The headline and article try to bias and frame the story to make people question: "Is OpenAI snitching on me?"
In reality, Uber records and conflicting statements incriminated him. He seems to be the one who provided the ChatGPT record to try to prove that the fire was unintentional.[1]
> He was visibly anxious during that interview, according to the complaint. His efforts to call 911 and his question to ChatGPT about a cigarette lighting a fire indicated that he wanted to create a more innocent explanation for the fire's start and to show he tried to assist with suppression, the complaint said.
pretty interesting that cloud data is not covered by the 4th amendment. I wonder if we’ll push for on-prem storage of context and memories as our relationship with AI gets more personal and intertwined.
This title is misleading. The article doesn't say that the chat history will be used as evidence, only that it exists. Whether it can be used in court is an unsettled question, as explained in the last few paragraphs.
> But more curious than the allegation that a Florida man was responsible for setting a small brush fire on the other side of the country
As far as I’ve heard from other articles, he lived in the Palisades at the time and worked as an Uber driver there. He moved to Florida after the fire. This is not very well researched.
"This felony charge, he added, carried a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years in federal prison but is punishable by up to 20 years in prison."
Are the 12 deaths separate charges? A sentence of 5-20 years seems very light for 12 deaths. This article is clearly focused on the AI aspect of it, so it doesn't cover the charges at all really.
I have a "saved" history in Google Gemini. The reason I put "saved" in scare quotes is that Google feels free to change the parts of that history that were supplied by Gemini. They no longer match my external records of what was said.
Does ChatGPT do the same thing? I'd be queasy about relying on this as evidence.
ChatGPT will generate output and immediately censor it if some oversight code deems it problematic. Ask about court decisions in sex crime cases without being creepy and you can see it in action.
I don't get these people. I get nervous to type even something like "why in movies people throw up after killing someone" in Google, even in incognito mode. Why would anyone put something even remotely incriminating into the hands of another company?
If anyone's wonder if this guy was really the cause of the Palisade's fire: No, probably not. His reportedly erratic and eccentric behavior tells me he's probably not mentally capable of standing trial. Normally the government would just shrug, call it an act of nature, and move on. But for some reason they're going out of their way to pin this fire on someone.
If I can tin-foil-hat a bit, wouldn't it make sense if ruling the fire an act of arson would be favorable to someone with power, such as the Malibu landowners or the insurance companies? If anyone wants to "cui bono" their way to an article about it I'd be interesting in reading that.
Strange. The article says that he made the fire, called first responders, who put the fire out. The fire continued to smolder before reigniting in later winds.
If you cause a problem, report it, then the authorities responsible for dealing with those problems take care of it and go home, what does it mean?
Are the authorities then partially responsible for not ensuring the fire was put out properly before leaving the area?
Is he even guilty at all given that he filled his duty and reported the problem after unintentionally causing it?
I mean everyone sees this stuff differently. In my opinion everyone is allowed to carry a gun (above 18, not crazy, etc..). If you take a loaded gun and aim it at someones head and force them to empty a cash register into a bag, I personally believe that person should NEVER be allowed in society ever again in their lifetime. (Yeah that's not how it all works). But you were willing to let that person be within strands of their life not existing. If they reacted in the wrong way - not even intentionally, the gunman will shoot. If they try to fight back because they didn't agree to empty the cash register, the gunman shoots.
That's an extreme situation that the gunman put someone in. Imagine it being YOU. Now if you could be the LAST person that gunman ever put in that situation, would you allow them to go to jail forever? Because if that's the case, the number of people in that situation ever again goes from millions to a few thousand over the next 1000 years. And many of those people will REACT and die.
So when someone starts a fire, they were like the gunman. They were willing to let a lot of people die. Then realizing they were wrong, calling the cops, and having them put the fire out, that's the same as the situation as going into 7-11 and aiming the gun, but then putting it down and walking out. But they still risked someone else's life! What if they accidentally slipped their finger? Employee DEAD.
So it's really the same thing. All that being said, I do grant that the waters are muddied at this point with the legal system. The person still deserves to be separated from civil society. He is not CIVIL!
And even though the legal system's waters are muddied, his original actions resulted in 12 people dying. The firefighters that were incompetent are not originally responsible for those 12 deaths.
The reason I want maximum punishment is that it works, it does deter. In this legal system of course there's a 50/50 those 12 people will have died without being avenged at all (and their families - all that are affected), and a 90% chance (if he is found responsible) those 12 people will get this guy in jail for 10 years. And because of those chances, people decide, that fuck even if I'm caught, it seems like in the last 10 years there is a VERY low chance of punishment. Punishment is very important in this world and life. I'm not talking about capital punishment.
A lot of people disagree with all of this, I personally think they have suicidal empathy. They have no empathy to the thousands of people that died from other peoples intentional actions - actions those people KNEW they might end up killing. They have too much empathy for the attacker. It's massive victim blaming.
Is there any reason to believe that deleting a ChatGPT conversation is anything more than "UPDATE conversations SET status='user_deleted WHERE conversation_id=..."?
If a person is suspected of committing a crime, and police obtain a specific, pointed, warrant for information pertaining to an individual, tech companies have a moral obligation to comply, in the best interests of humanity.
If law enforcement or spy agency asked for a dragnet warrant like "find me all of the people that might be guilty of XYZ" or "find me something this individual might be guilty of"; tech companies have a moral obligation to resist, in the best interest of humanity.
The first is an example of the justice system working correctly in a free society; the second is an example of totalitarian government seeking to frame individuals.
34 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 55.2 ms ] threadJust for general peace of mind, use a privacy-oriented search engine. I use leta.mullvad.net or search.brave.com usually. I haven't used Google in years. And if you just happen to have a curiosity about something fringe that might be misinterpreted in the wrong circumstances, download an LLM and use it locally.
In reality, Uber records and conflicting statements incriminated him. He seems to be the one who provided the ChatGPT record to try to prove that the fire was unintentional.[1]
> He was visibly anxious during that interview, according to the complaint. His efforts to call 911 and his question to ChatGPT about a cigarette lighting a fire indicated that he wanted to create a more innocent explanation for the fire's start and to show he tried to assist with suppression, the complaint said.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-palisades-lo...
And very rightly so, regardless if Uber records incriminated this person.
As far as I’ve heard from other articles, he lived in the Palisades at the time and worked as an Uber driver there. He moved to Florida after the fire. This is not very well researched.
Are the 12 deaths separate charges? A sentence of 5-20 years seems very light for 12 deaths. This article is clearly focused on the AI aspect of it, so it doesn't cover the charges at all really.
I have a "saved" history in Google Gemini. The reason I put "saved" in scare quotes is that Google feels free to change the parts of that history that were supplied by Gemini. They no longer match my external records of what was said.
Does ChatGPT do the same thing? I'd be queasy about relying on this as evidence.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/25/sam-altman-warns-theres-no...
If you cause a problem, report it, then the authorities responsible for dealing with those problems take care of it and go home, what does it mean?
Are the authorities then partially responsible for not ensuring the fire was put out properly before leaving the area?
Is he even guilty at all given that he filled his duty and reported the problem after unintentionally causing it?
That's an extreme situation that the gunman put someone in. Imagine it being YOU. Now if you could be the LAST person that gunman ever put in that situation, would you allow them to go to jail forever? Because if that's the case, the number of people in that situation ever again goes from millions to a few thousand over the next 1000 years. And many of those people will REACT and die.
So when someone starts a fire, they were like the gunman. They were willing to let a lot of people die. Then realizing they were wrong, calling the cops, and having them put the fire out, that's the same as the situation as going into 7-11 and aiming the gun, but then putting it down and walking out. But they still risked someone else's life! What if they accidentally slipped their finger? Employee DEAD.
So it's really the same thing. All that being said, I do grant that the waters are muddied at this point with the legal system. The person still deserves to be separated from civil society. He is not CIVIL!
And even though the legal system's waters are muddied, his original actions resulted in 12 people dying. The firefighters that were incompetent are not originally responsible for those 12 deaths.
The reason I want maximum punishment is that it works, it does deter. In this legal system of course there's a 50/50 those 12 people will have died without being avenged at all (and their families - all that are affected), and a 90% chance (if he is found responsible) those 12 people will get this guy in jail for 10 years. And because of those chances, people decide, that fuck even if I'm caught, it seems like in the last 10 years there is a VERY low chance of punishment. Punishment is very important in this world and life. I'm not talking about capital punishment.
A lot of people disagree with all of this, I personally think they have suicidal empathy. They have no empathy to the thousands of people that died from other peoples intentional actions - actions those people KNEW they might end up killing. They have too much empathy for the attacker. It's massive victim blaming.
It seems firefighters are not conservative enough when it comes to putting out fires, at least in these 2 cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991
If a person is suspected of committing a crime, and police obtain a specific, pointed, warrant for information pertaining to an individual, tech companies have a moral obligation to comply, in the best interests of humanity.
If law enforcement or spy agency asked for a dragnet warrant like "find me all of the people that might be guilty of XYZ" or "find me something this individual might be guilty of"; tech companies have a moral obligation to resist, in the best interest of humanity.
The first is an example of the justice system working correctly in a free society; the second is an example of totalitarian government seeking to frame individuals.