Tell HN: ChatGPT on macOS grants local computer access to cloud account

3 points by lxgr ↗ HN
I recently started a conversation on ChatGPT for macOS in "Work" mode with the "In the Cloud" execution option enabled. I was expecting this to run on a cloud VM, just like "Work" conversations started on chatgpt.com

When I continued it in the browser (e.g. via right clicking it on macOS and then selecting "Open on chatgpt.com"), I was pretty shocked to learn that it actually had (and still has) access to my local file system. I could just prompt it to list files in my home directory, in /Applications etc.

I never have opted into this behavior in the macOS app, nor does there seem to be any way to deactivate it. It's somewhat documented for enterprise accounts [1], and it can be deactivated for those in the admin panel, but this seems like the wrong place: Why should this be possible to activate remotely?

Can anybody confirm this behavior? Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems pretty concerning.

[1] https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/enterprise/cloud-local-access

1 comment

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why your post is ranked first ? did u pay for it ? a honest question