OpenAI CEO Warns: ChatGPT Conversations Not Legally Protected, Can Be Used in Court

Altman Warns That Your ChatGPT Conversations Can (and Will) Be Used Against You in Court

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has issued a serious warning for all those using ChatGPT for therapy or counsel. Your chats aren't legally protected and could be presented in court during lawsuits. People are increasingly turning to chatbots to talk through personal problems, but during a recent appearance on Theo Vonn's This Past Weekend podcast, Atlman warned that OpenAI cannot block those conversations from being used as evidence. "So, if you go talk to ChatGPT about your most sensitive stuff and then there's like a lawsuit or whatever, like we could be required to produce that. And I think that's very screwed up," Altman said in response to a question around the legal framework for AI. Plus, due to an ongoing lawsuit brought by The New York Times, OpenAI is required to maintain records of all your deleted conversations as well. In the podcast, Altman says a legal or policy framework for AI is needed. He compares ChatGPT conversations with those made with doctors, lawyers, and therapists and opines that AI chatbots should be granted the same legal privileges. "Right now, if you talk to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor about those problems, there's legal privilege for it. There's doctor-patient confidentiality, there's legal confidentiality, whatever. And we haven't figured that out yet for when you talk to ChatGPT," Altman said. "I think we should have, like, the same concept of privacy for your conversations with AI that we do with a therapist or whatever." While AI companies figure that out, Altman said it's fair for users "to really want the privacy clarity before you use [ChatGPT] a lot -- like the legal clarity." Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Be careful what you tell ChatGPT, lawyers warn

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Lawyers have warned about the dangers of sharing sensitive personal information with generative AI tools because computer programs have no regard for privacy and are not bound by confidentiality laws. Sonia Haque-Vatcher, a risk advisory partner at Ashurst law firm who has expertise in AI and data, said tools such as ChatGPT responded in such a human-like way that they encouraged a false sense of safety and culture of oversharing.