“Risks of Sharing Classified Information on ChatGPT and Similar Software”

Size of the group receiving your classified information.

For example: I send a message via email. 1 person can receive it. Or a small group of people. If I place my secret information in an e-mail newsletter, I will get a few thousand recipients, but that’s where it ends. Most people are skilled and/or smart enough not to put that kind of information in a newsletter, so the receiving group is small.

The same goes for WhatsApp. Usually the secret information does not go beyond 1 person, small group or somewhat larger group, for example your amateur football club.

Services like these leave few traces, especially if the message containing classified information is older. You need space in your phone to create new d.ckp.cs, so old stuff goes off. Your mailbox also fills up over time, so you automatically throw something away or that happens automatically.

However, with ChatGPT that secret information becomes part of the language model, is never forgotten and is used in requested responses from the moment it has become part of the language model. You have no control over who the questioner(s) are. Now and not the future.

So there is indeed a risk assessment for companies to make. If you handle information from a 3rd party, this party will immediately come up with a contract that specifically states that you may never share their information. Or even save. Failure to comply will result in loss of work and serious penalty payments.

It doesn’t matter if you communicate with it or ask questions.

You think too small.

For many companies it is financially better to ban and/or block ChatGPT and similar software. Saves a lot of risk and any insurance that a company has to take out so that after a stupidity / brain fart of 1 employee (anywhere in the organization) it cannot immediately be declared bankrupt. Or suddenly have to issue decent profit warnings, as a result of which investors’ panties get completely tangled.

For those types of companies, the benefits of using ChatGPT do not outweigh the costs.

Now you can send messages automatically via email and Whatsapp, I already know that. But that is not how the majority of users send messages. With ChatGPT you don’t know how many requesters there have been or how many will come. ChatGPT will babble your secret information to anyone who asks the “magic questions”, until the end of time and/or when the language model is completely emptied and/or runs out of electricity. Don’t see that happening any time soon.

So ChatGPT should have been called GossipGPT…
Must have been a bit too obvious for the makers