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by tptacek 380 days ago
No, there is a whole news cycle about how chats you delete aren't actually being deleted because of a lawsuit, they essentially have to respond. It's not an attempt to spin the lawsuit; it's about reassuring their customers.
5 comments

The part where they go out of the way to call the lawsuit baseless is spin though, and mixing that with this messaging does exactly that, presents a mixed message. The NYT lawsuit is objectively not baseless. OpenAI did train on the Times and chat gpt does output information from that training. That’s the basis of the lawsuit. NYT may lose, this could end up being considered fair use, it might ultimately be a flimsy basis for a lawsuit, but to say it’s baseless (and with nothing to back that up) is spin and makes this message less reassuring.
No, it's not. It's absolutely standard corporate communications. If they're fighting the lawsuit, that is essentially the only thing they can say about it. Ford Motor Company would say the same thing (well, they'd probably say "meritless and frivolous").
Standard corporate spin, then?
No, this isn't even close to spin, it's just a standard part of defending your case. In the US tort system you need to be constantly publicly saying you did nothing wrong. Any wavering on that point could be used against you in court.
This is a funny thread. You say "No" but then restate the point with slightly different words. As if anything a company says publicly about ongoing litigation isn't spin.
I suppose it's down to how you define "spin". Personally I'm in favor of a definition of the term that doesn't excessively dilute it.
No? "Spin" implies there was something else they could possibly say.
They could choose to not say it
Indeed. Taken to its conclusion, this thread suggests that corporations are justified in saying whatever they want in order to further their own ends.

Including lies.

I'd like to aim a little higher, maybe towards expecting correspondence with reality?

IOW, yes, there is no law that OpenAi can't try to spin this. But it's still a shitty, non-factually-based choice to make.

I haven't heard that interpretation; I might call it spin of spin.
If you're being held at gunpoint and forced to lie, your words are still a lie. Whether you were forced or not is a separate dimension.
That is unrelated to what the expression means.
I’m typing these words from a brain that has absorbed copyrighted works.
My understanding is that they have to keep chats based on an order, *as a result of their previous accidental deletion of potential evidence in the case*[0].

And per their own terms they likely only delete messages "when they want to" given the big catch-alls. "What happens when you delete a chat? -> It is scheduled for permanent deletion from OpenAI's systems within 30 days, unless: It has already been de-identified and disassociated from your account"[1]

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/22/openai-accidentally-delete...

[1] https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8809935-how-to-delete-an...

They should include the part where the order is a result of them deleting things they shouldn’t have then. You know, if this isn’t spin.

Then again I’m starting to think OpenAI is gathering a cult leader like following where any negative comments will result in devoted followers or those with something to gain immediately jumping to its defense no matter how flimsy the ground.

>They should include the part where the order is a result of them deleting things they shouldn’t have then. You know, if this isn’t spin.

From what I can tell from the court filings, prior to the judge's order to retain everything, the request to retain everything was coming from the plaintiff, with openai objecting to the request and refusing to comply in the meantime. If so, it's a bit misleading to characterize this as "deleting things they shouldn’t have", because what they "should have" done wasn't even settled. That's a bit rich coming from someone accusing openai of "spin".

Here’s a good article that explains what you may be missing.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/22/openai-accidentally-delete...

Your linked article talks about openai deleting training data. I don't see how that's related to the current incident, which is about user queries. The ruling from the judge for openai to retain all user queries also didn't reference this incident.
Sure.

Without this devolving into a tit for tat then the article explains for those following this conversation why it’s been elevated to a court order and not just an expectation to preserve.

> the article explains for those following this conversation why it’s been elevated to a court order

That article does nothing of the sort and, indeed, it is talking about a completely separate incident of deleting data.

> It's not an attempt to spin the lawsuit; it's about reassuring their customers.

It can be both. It clearly spins the lawsuit - it doesn't present the NYT's side at all.

It would be extremely unusual (and likely very stupid) for the defendant in a lawsuit to post publicly that the plaintiff maybe has a point.
Why does OpenAI have any obligation to present the NYTs side?
Who said 'obligation'?
It's hard to reassure your customers if you can't address the elephant in the room. OpenAI brought this on themselves by flaunting copyright law and assuring everyone else that such aggressive and probably-illegal action would be retroactively acceptable once they were too big to fail.