Tell HN: OpenAI keeps re-enabling the 'allow training' setting

It wouldn't absolve anyone, but given their stated level of control over their own AI agents, it wouldn't be very shocking if this turned out to happen with no human decision or awareness.

Based on their behavior over the past few years, why would you assume that checkbox even does anything at all?

There's also this setting here which I have set to 'Do not train on my content' even though I trust it the same as the 'allow training' one...

https://privacy.openai.com/policies/en/?modal=take-control

If you document it properly then this basically destroys any legal claim they can make about that checkbox.

I've noticed that toggle sets a local storage entry, but the value of it doesn't appear to matter at all for new tab loads. I hoped it's "just" a UI bug, but some agent-driven reverse engineering of the page should reveal the answer, as well as how intentional it was.

> Make sure you check this thing to see if it hasn't been re-enabled if you believe it to be off right now.

Or simply switch to a competitor. Assuming this is not just a bug, why would one stand for such disrespectful and sneaky behavior?

And don't switch to Misanthropic lol. They are even worst...

My cynicism fails me on this matter... do I cynically believe that these companies keep deliberately and routinely re- or un-checking these checkboxes because of the obvious benefits of "whoopsie guess you allowed these after all"? Or do I cynically believe that they are just so completely incompetent and inept at the simple act of maintaining settings that there may be a number of these that are not entirely intentional? As evidenced by the number of other bugs and configuration failures and random settings changes on update I see in other places? Sure, these sorts of settings sure seem to get spontaneously flipped more often than the other ones but they aren't the only settings I've seen get nuked on updates.

Now, obviously, considered as a whole, I think we're looking at "both". But when I wonder about specific cases like this one, that doesn't help.

Oh no… OpenAI, the company who encourages and instructs Apple employees on how to get them data on apple products when they accept an offer?

"Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"