Like the past years, a flurry of tech tools came and went in 2022; while some succeeded in making a distinct name of its own, some fizzled out. Analyzing the current trends in 2023, it can be said beyond a shadow of doubt that the tech market is presently highly swept by the craze of ChatGPT. And who is to be credited for this? A San Francisco company called Open AI.
However, like all tech tools, ChatGPT too is having its fair share of glitches currently. Since the last few days while using the AI chatbot, users aren’t able to access their chat histories. Soon, it came to be known that because of a bug, they were seeing someone else’s chats in their chat history. Consequently it was shut down for some time by OpenAI. So, how was the issue resolved? What needs to be further done? Let’s find out.
A Bug at the Root of All!
On Sunday, several users shared on social media that they couldn’t access ChatGPT’s chat history because of an error message. “History is momentarily unavailable,” the warning said. OpenAI is working to get this functionality back as quickly as they can. Also, a flaw made brief summaries of some users’ discussions available to other people. At about the same time, a Bloomberg report began to circulate online, saying that OpenAI had temporarily disabled the chatbot.
According to a tweet from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the problem was brought on by “a bug in an open source library,” and a technical post-mortem will be released later. He also mentions that a library update has been issued and that OpenAI has verified it, but he omitted to clarify when users might anticipate seeing their conversation history once more.
The bug serves as a crucial warning to be cautious while sharing sensitive information with ChatGPT. The business cannot remove individual suggestions from a user’s history, and talks may be utilized for training, according to a FAQ on OpenAI’s website, which asks users to refrain from sharing any sensitive information in their conversations. But as organizations continue to experiment with how to employ the new tool, there will inevitably be a tremendous desire to divulge private information to the chatbot.
On Monday, the website was unavailable for almost 12 hours as Open AI tried to fix the problem. Afterwards, the servers were repaired, and the business released a statement saying that while service had been resumed, conversation history was still unavailable.
The reason for the loss of discussion history is known, and we are working right away to fix it. The problem has affected both free users and premium members. As brief summaries of the chat history were shared with unintended individuals, the issue became much more problematic. The website had to be temporarily taken down by Open AI on March 20.
However, the issue continued to be unavailable even on Tuesday. In another update, Open AI reported- “We’ve fully restored ChatGPT service to all users. We’re continuing to work to restore past conversation history to users.”
How did the users react?
If you use #ChatGPT be careful! There's a risk of your chats being shared to other users!
Today I was presented another user's chat history.
I couldn't see contents, but could see their recent chats' titles.#security #privacy #openAI #AI pic.twitter.com/DLX3CZntao— Jordan L Wheeler (@JordanLWheeler) March 20, 2023
One person claimed multiple ChatGPT discussions in a photo they posted on Reddit weren’t their own, while another user claimed the same bug in a screenshot they provided on Twitter. A representative for OpenAI verified the occurrence to Bloomberg, emphasizing that only brief descriptive titles rather than full transcripts of talks were shared by the bug.
A frustrated user tweeted- “Why am I paying for ChatGPT Plus if it is not going to work? They say that chat history is down temporarily and now I am stuck because I can’t find my old conversations to continue debugging my code.”
While another tweet was- “I’ve cancelled ChatGPT Plus and requested a refund. In the less-than-a-week since I signed up, the quota I got for conversations cratered, and they completely broke the history function with no explanation or communication. It feels like bait and switch.”
Also read: https://trendingnewsbuzz.com/level-up-your-gaming-experience-with-these-essential-tech-items/
To Wrap It Up
The most recent status update from 10:54 PM ET on Monday states that service has been resumed but that all users’ previous conversation histories are still being worked on. But according to Altman, users won’t have access to the talks they had on March 27 between 4 AM to 1 PM ET. Nonetheless, OpenAI has recommended not to share any “sensitive information” because users’ may be reviewed by AI trainers for improving the system.
