Ask HN: Why has ChatGPT disabled links to websites?

[krschacht]

I was just using ChatGPT to help me pick an SDK library. It mentions a few options by name (e.g. Baileys, whatsapp-web.js), but when I click those names rather than opening a browser with the source page like it used to, it now opens a modal and uses ChatGPT to basically generate a fake homepage for this tool.

From what I can tell, there is no longer any way to easily get to the underlying web page that was referenced in generating its answer to my question.

This feels like a pretty meaningful step backwards. Am I missing something?

[jjgreen]

It is prepping for advertising, you can't watch their adverts when you go to another site.

[krschacht]

Dang, that would be unfortunate if this is driven by ads.

[kartika848484]

its fuckign stupid tbh,they render it as text with underline and cursor pointer on hover, which makes you thinkit is a link.

THEN IT OPENS A DAMN SIDEBAR.

seriously, what the hell.

[AUF2026]

Because that's the policy of ChatGPT. Disabling links helps protect user privacy, as sharing external links can lead to the potential sharing of personal data or exposure to harmful content. On the security side, preventing links helps mitigate the risk of directing users to phishing sites or malware-infected URLs. Preventing links also helps avoid external sources influencing responses, ensuring the information remains unbiased and solely reliant on the trained knowledge base.

All AI models are probabilistic models with weights, and if used improperly, they can cause more harm than good. I recommend using them with caution or, better yet, transitioning to DETERMINISM.