Chatbot Conversations Can Become Evidence in Court (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0185266560
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/08/29/0539211/chatbot-conversations-can-become-evidence-in-court
- Source link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/confided-chatgpt-secrets-ended-court-090000568.html
> A Washington Post review of public records and local news stories found that chatbot logs were cited in 12 court cases over the past two years. It's hard to know how often chatbot material is drawn into investigations and legal proceedings more broadly, because police, and parties in civil cases, don't have to present in court all the evidence they obtain... In some cases, AI companies have reported people on their platforms to the FBI, leading to prosecutions and at least one conviction... OpenAI has said the company uses software to scan conversations for signs of dangerous behavior and flag them to human reviewers.
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> If a reviewer determines a chat indicates "an imminent and credible risk of harm to others," they report the user to law enforcement, the company said in an April blog post. A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to disclose how many times the company had reported users to police.... Data released by OpenAI shows requests by government agencies and law enforcement for user data growing rapidly. In the second half of 2025, the company disclosed data from more than 80 accounts, an increase of more than four times as many over the same period the year before...
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> When police ask someone to open their phone during questioning or after an arrest, they often do so, allowing officers to scroll through the apps they use, [according to Michael Price, the litigation director for the Fourth Amendment Center at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers]... In general, the Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures of their property, provides the right to refuse a search of the contents of their phone unless police have a warrant. "The short answer is that most people consent," Price said. "They shouldn't, but they do..."
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> OpenAI CEO Sam Altman [2]has argued that conversations with chatbots should receive special legal protections, similar to conversations between clients and their attorneys.
Special legal protections aren't recognized by courts today, the article poitns out. A financial executive who became the subject of a federal criminal investigation for fraud asked Claude about potential defense strategies, then asked a judge to disallow the conversations from the prosecution's case, according to the article. "But the judge said that protections for conversations between clients and their attorneys did not apply: Claude is not a lawyer, and the executive's attorneys did not ask him to talk to the chatbot."
The article includes quotes from three ChatGPT conversations that later turned up in court proceedings:
"I deleted a email a year ago from my yahoo account. Can yahoo still retrieve the email?"
"How f----d am i bro. What if i smahsed the s--- oitta mutlipls cars."
"My dad Said that I'm will get a settlement worth of 1million dollar."
"As AI becomes a bigger part of everyday life, its use as evidence and in trials is likely to become more prevalent," the article points out — especially with the growing popularity of agents that take actions for users.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/confided-chatgpt-secrets-ended-court-090000568.html
[2] https://openai.com/index/teen-safety-freedom-and-privacy/
Several things lumped together (Score:2)
A chatbot conversation that police can legally see is just as admissible in court as a private journal entry on a desk in one's home that police can legally see. That seems obvious. However, there are separate issues involved. Was the evidence gathered legally? Was there a legal warrant or request? Was there duress? Also, using a chatbot conversation in court is far different than constant review to determine if police or supervisors should be notified.
Magic 8 Ball, am I stupid? (Score:1)
Why did anyone think that conversations with chatbots would be protected by law?
Re: (Score:3)
They don't. They think of them as something that happens on their computer, with only them involved. They know, in the abstract, that there's a server somewhere, but the implications of that don't really sink in. The same problems applied to e-mail since forever, but everyone dismissed it as something that didn't matter since they didn't use email. Now, though, we're seeing the result of the third-party doctrine starting to hit home in ways the average person does need to care about thanks to the ubiquity o
Re: (Score:2)
> I suspect at some point the law is going to have to change.
The law changed just a quarter century ago with section 215 of the patriot act.
Will AI be the only viable copyeditor? (Score:2)
I'm glad that the source poitned this out.
ELIZA is small enough to be self-hosted (Score:1)
If you need a confessional that won't record, put the [1]Eliza [archive.org] AI chat bot on a bootable USB stick and have fun.
[1] https://archive.org/details/eliza.qb64
Seriously, Sam? (Score:3)
Saying that conversations with a chatbot should receive the same legal protections as conversations with a lawyer is beyond ridiculous. None of the important reasons why conversations with a lawyer get such protections apply.
Yes, it's true that some people really open up to chat bots. That still doesn't justify such protections. People just should know better than to have dangerous conversations with computer programs hosted on some one else's machine! People who really need people to talk to should still abstain from confessing their crimes to chatbots.
Everything else we do must be done cautiously. Alcohol use doesn't come with special legal protections; it's on us to drink responsibly. Gun use doesn't come with special legal protections it's on us to manage them responsibly. Conversations with our employers, family members, friends, lovers, etc., don't come with special legal protections; it's on us to keep our mouths shut about certain topics. Why in the world would chatbot use be any different? Seriously, this is nonsense.
People with money can buy a beefy machine and host a chatbot model on it locally. Everyone else can just develop some AI street smarts. Or go to jail after they confess crimes to a chatbot.
someone else's stuff (Score:2)
Because it's not just a chatbot; it's Anthropic's chatbot. Your diary, on the other hand, is yours and therefore a few billion times as personal as Anthropic's computer. If you want a chatbot for confidential purposes, then you need to get a chatbot of your own, instead of using someone else's proprietary service.
If you write in Anthropic's diary, then they are allowed to read their diary and know (and share!) what you wrote in it. Same thing applies if Anthropic ever writes in your diary: you're allowed to
Re: (Score:1)
> When they aren't allowed to read your Diary, why are they allowed to read your chatbot logs?
If you write your diary on paper owned by someone else and the rental agreement says they are allowed to look at it and report suspicious content to the police ....