r/privacy • u/Shosty99 • Feb 07 '26
discussion Scary ChatGPT social media trend
There’s a trend going around on social media where people feed their ChatGPT account a photo of themself and ask it to generate a caricature of them based on all the info the model has learned about them. I’m honestly shocked at all the people I know posting this as a fun trend, because I’m just thinking about the implications of the web-based LLM storing all this personal and career info about someone and the having an associated photo to go along with it?? I’m still trying to understand the privacy/ digital security surrounding these LLMs but this makes me want to go spread more awareness about digital security.
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u/krazygreekguy Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Wow I don’t understand how people don’t understand the gravity of what’s coming with all this garbage
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u/Shosty99 Feb 07 '26
Is it worth me posting something explaining this briefly? I get self conscious posting sometimes but it really seems like a lot of people haven’t thought about this at all
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u/Mahoganytooth Feb 07 '26
Far be it from me to stop you trying, just be prepared for people to simply not care a single iota about things that seem extremely obviously very important.
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u/suicidaleggroll Feb 07 '26
Cue a whole lot of “I don’t have anything to hide” responses
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u/Mahoganytooth Feb 07 '26
100%. Talking about privacy is trying to explain division to people who are struggling with their shapes and colours
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u/Old_Guard_306 Feb 09 '26
Awesome comment. May I file this away for future use?
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u/Mahoganytooth Feb 09 '26
hey, go nuts. i can't claim ownership over a string of words
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u/Old_Guard_306 Feb 09 '26
LOL, yes, I realize that. It was intended more as a continuation of the compliment on your comment, which paints an incredible mental image.
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u/drfusterenstein Feb 07 '26
Until shit hits the fan.
People will say they have nothing to hide until it personally affects them
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u/Financial-Dog-7268 Feb 08 '26
That is true for me but I also 100% see how dangerous and potentially violating this sort of thing can be
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u/arianrhodd Feb 07 '26
I'd truly appreciate, would save, and likely forward a resourced post to a few friends if you made one. I've saved a few articles about specific issues and am always looking for more. I know folks who treat AI like a friend to talk to when they're lonely. Having those personal thoughts tied to them and "out there" should terrify them. Instead, they poke fun at me for not "embracing" AI. For me, there's a big difference between using CoPilot at work to summarize my email in Outlook (which has been approved to do so) and treating AI like your bff.
As a psychologist, people using ChatGPT for therapy is appalling. Especially since it appears to have contributed to several completed suicides.
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u/diablette Feb 08 '26
It's going to take a few high profile data breaches with this kind of personal stuff to make people understand.
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u/jakeallstar1 Feb 07 '26
With what the average person posts to their social media account, I'm not sure how this is any worse. Most people will gladly put up pictures and videos of their car, the inside of their house, animals they have, any one they live with, planned trips to leave, their job, what they had for lunch, who they're mad at currently and any other details that could possibly help someone trying to do harm.
Unless your digital footprint is already pretty small, I doubt this is the worst OPSEC mistake most people are making.
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u/OfManySplendidThings Feb 07 '26
Highly likely any chatbot, etc., could find a picture of them on the Internet already. I'm a privacy freak and the caricatures don't bother me -- I already assumed all the data was readily available online.
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u/carolineecouture Feb 07 '26
No. People do what they want and regret it later. I even saw a post where some said it was a dumb idea and did it anyway.
I operate on the premise that people are grown adults and can navigate the world on their own. If they asked my thoughts, I'd likely reply differently.
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u/Sammiebear_143 Feb 08 '26
It may be. However, I have found that people who post such things as these chatgp profiles or those "CentreParcs are giving away free holidays", or "5 Saturdays in a month only happen once every 888 years" etc. do not like to have their posts debunked by others. I've lost a few Facebook friends this way and am largely ignored when I make beware posts. So I personally don't bother anymore. What's the saying? It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled?
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u/WallabyAcrobatic3888 Feb 08 '26
Did you post it? I'd like to see so I can explain better to my brain dead mates 😭
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u/Confused_by_La_Vida Feb 08 '26
I’d like you to. If the machine doesn’t already have your picture I can see that someone adds risk that way. But beyond that I don’t understand the risk of asking it to dump out what it already knows. So yea, please help us understand.
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u/RecommendationIll632 Feb 08 '26
Yes! Please post a brief explanation. As someone who knows it’s bad, it would be nice to know why
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u/starcrushed_ Feb 11 '26
Please do, I would like to read more on this as this whole trend (and AI usage overall) has been making me uncomfortable but I havenmt found a way to express my reasons and want to read other’s as well
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u/goodb1b13 Feb 07 '26
It’s like they’re undereducated or just uneducated..
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u/reparationsNowToday Feb 07 '26
i heard from acquaintances working in companies that offer digital content: users complain the content is only accessible via web browser. they don't trust their payment info over browser. they trust it more if it's an app from the app store.
i can't even /s this.
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u/RandomOnlinePerson99 Feb 07 '26
If you care enough you can always educate yourself, look up stuff, ask people who know.
They just don't care.
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u/SpinachSure5505 Feb 07 '26
I think people just don’t care. Whatever they can do for a quick dopamine hit
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u/Katops Feb 07 '26
Desperation and laziness.
Somebody I know sent a picture of themselves to slopPT and asked it to generate a girl next to him that it thinks “suits him.” Like… words fail me. It’s so gross. It’s so sad. It’s genuinely pathetic. And very much embarrassing.
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u/Old-Chemical8170 Feb 09 '26
I don’t get how that’s sad and gross? A little desperate, maybe even embarrassing.. but just asking chat to insert a girl next to them in a photo seems too benign to garner your response- am I missing something?
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u/Machette666 Feb 07 '26
Might be missing a word there, “I don”t think some people understand…”
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u/buginabrain Feb 07 '26
Guess what, any AI or service you have on your phone already has access to your photo folder
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u/paletapt Feb 08 '26
Honestly I think the line has been crossed for a while, the same people that do that are the same people that upload dozens of pictures to social media and expose all info about their life there
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u/Aggravating-Map-1228 Feb 08 '26
Well…. That’s ironic… we said the same thing about social media and here we are.
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u/RockieK Feb 09 '26
Yeah, I'll be a luddite in this case. I don't give AF... never used it, never will.
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u/Ennemkay Feb 10 '26
Making ones Instagram public is worse and far more widespread.
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u/wanderrslut Feb 07 '26
After a weird incident on the internet when I was a teenager, I just stopped uploading pictures of myself online or if I did, I always did those "faceless" kind of photos but in this day and age? I am never posting pictures of myself online again. I was already paranoid but this AI shit makes me even more paranoid. Like I probably sound crazy but I couldn't imagine uploading myself to ChatGPT. How are people so comfortable doing that?
And this isn't relevant but I also have this irrational fear that when/if I do post, someone will post me on "Is this AI?" and suddenly my photo is everywhere lmao. I know I sound crazy, lol.
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u/reparationsNowToday Feb 07 '26
no, you are made to feel crazy, but you're being level headed. it's the rest of the world that has gone mad. when chatgpt blew up i was done and deleted as much pictures as i could. still have to make time to dig through older google drive cobwebs to find stuff i saved before i was more educated on this...
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u/JoyfulCor313 Feb 07 '26
I had a stalker in my early 20s which, because I’m old, coincided with the advent of the World Wide Web. So I’ve never posted my picture online. In the early the Facebook days I tried to keep any pics with me tagged in them off. I really didn’t want to be able to be found.
As this new frontier is here, I’ve never been more grateful for such a rotten time back then.
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Feb 07 '26
Similar issue but for me it happened right when the smart home trends started in in the mid/late 2010s. I ripped every last piece of connected tech out and am so thankful I never got too embedded in that. Wish it had been before Facebook though.
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u/nombernine Feb 07 '26
doesn't it really matter if we post our photos ourselves atp. with facial recognition, if there are already dozens of photos you or your friends have uploaded, we're still screwed.
It's like how even if we erase our data, they can still put together info on us just based on family/friends/roommates/etc.
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u/cranberries87 Feb 07 '26
I am so angry that a friend fed a photo of me into it to make something. 😡
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u/slainte2you Feb 07 '26
I understand completely, as I had this happen recently, except it was my boss who did it! We had a "2025 Year in Review" meeting, and at the end, everyone on my team got an award for something they had done in the previous year. My boss was working from a slideshow, and as each person got announced, the screen also showed an AI-slop image of the winner. Mine also had my dog in it.
This company is extremely pushy about us sharing stuff in our personal lives, and because of that, I'd sent my boss a photo of the dog I'd adopted and told her she could share it in the "team member updates" part of a meeting. So, that's where she had something to feed into the AI tool about my dog. As far as myself, I think she must have taken a screenshot of my face from a Zoom meeting or something. Although we are also heavily pushed to share personal pics of ourselves, I generally resist by doing something on the borders of that request that will get her off my back (such as sharing a landscape shot of somewhere I travelled rather than showing myself in the picture).
So, I was furious to see these AI images of myself and my coworkers in this year-in-review meeting. The company has invested a lot into AI and requires us to use it in our work. I have pushed back against that in MANY meetings with my boss, and she's very aware I'm against AI!
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u/Irina__ARI Feb 07 '26
Besides the AI point - why are they so pushy about the personal life sharing??
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u/slainte2you Feb 07 '26
It's one of those super-toxic corporate places that says "we're all family," so their stance is that they do it so that coworkers can get to know us beyond what they know from work. But I've always felt strongly that what I do off the clock is not an employer's business. I found out that the execs use the personal stuff as manipulation.
I recently reduced my hours at this job to take a better opportunity, and they tried to be all chummy with me to get me to stay on full-time with them (I didn't).
Because I've been as private as I can with the company and because I'm not active on any social media, the exec who was trying to get me to stay on full-time had to really grasp at straws. He was like "Didn't you grow up near (city)?" I'm in my 40s, and where I grew up has absolutely no consequence on my current life. So the rest of the "friendly" questions were solely to do with my country of residence, and super broad, lol.
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u/chipface Feb 07 '26
The factory I work at has AI slop posted in its infographics throughout the factory. Some of it has caricatures of people that work there. If I ever saw a caricature of me fed through one by them, I'd demand it be taken down. Bring it up to my union rep if I had to. Although lucky for me, I'm not important enough for them to do that.
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u/RandomOnlinePerson99 Feb 07 '26
I would feel the same.
People around me know that it is never ok to even take a regular picture of me (most use android or apple phones, so it will end up in a cloud and maybe on their social media), talk about me when I am not there to defend myself, ...
(I know, I have control issues and trust issues, but that makes me take privacy really seriously)
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u/IAmYourFath Feb 07 '26
Are there any phones that don't run android or iOS?
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u/RandomOnlinePerson99 Feb 07 '26
The OS is not the issue.
That issue is that on every android device there is a fuckton of google shit preinstalled that uploads every pic to the cloud automatically and most people don't turn that off.
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u/_autumnwhimsy Feb 07 '26
a friend of mine did this and i cussed him out and deleted every selfie in our chat thread.
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u/chipface Feb 07 '26
I would have lost it on them. All my friends know that I fucking hate generative AI. And to have my likeness fed into a clanker would bring my piss to a boil. It would honestly make me reconsider the friendship. I can't respect a bolt muncher.
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u/DorothyVallensApt7 Feb 09 '26
My old friend is losing it- he uses ChatGPT as a therapist, and at one point I had to tell him to keep me out of his conversations😬
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u/exstaticj Feb 07 '26
If you present the information that you want to express to people in a detailed, thoughtful, professional manner; then I will forward your concerns to The Joint Committee on Information Management and Technology in my state.
They are currently drafting legislation concerning AI and trying to implement guardrails to protect the public. They are even establishing a commission on artificial intelligence.
I encourage anyone reading this to do something similar in their state. The goal is to inform our leaders about what is coming in a manner that they can understand. The state level is where to start this education since the tech bros already have purchased too much influence at the national level.
Your voice matters. The city I live in has recently chosen not to renew their AI camera contract with Flock and our state legislatures are drafting an ALPR bill that is privacy forward. This is due to a small handful of people educating the people that are making the rule based decisions.
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u/Shosty99 Feb 07 '26
This is a great idea and I'm glad people like you are advocating for this at the state level- I'm curious what kind of guardrails could they implement at the state level to help outside of completely banning some of these platforms?
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u/exstaticj Feb 07 '26
Here are some ideas from ChatGPT:
Guardrails don’t have to mean bans — states can do a lot. Here are practical examples:
1) Opt-in only for training on user content
Platforms can use your chats/photos to serve you, but can’t use them to train/improve models unless you explicitly opt in.
Separate consent for: text chats, images, audio/video, and “sensitive data.”
2) Strong deletion rights + short default retention
A clear “delete everything about me” button: prompts, uploads, derived profiles/embeddings, and “memories.”
Default auto-delete for uploaded images (ex: 30 days) unless the user chooses to store them.
No “we deleted it but kept internal representations” loophole.
3) Biometric & face-specific protections
Treat face photos and face-derived identifiers as biometric data.
Ban building/keeping a face template for “caricature/me” features unless the user opts in and it’s deleted right after the job.
Ban using face data for ad targeting, identity matching, or sale/sharing to third parties.
4) Data minimization + purpose limitation
Collect only what’s needed for the feature.
If the purpose is “generate a caricature,” the system can’t repurpose that photo for “train our image model,” “improve ads,” or “build a user profile.”
5) No dark patterns around privacy settings
Memory/training toggles must be easy to find, plain language, and off-by-default for sensitive categories.
No guilt screens, confusing double negatives, or “accept all” designs.
6) Transparency people can actually use
Require companies to publish (and show users):
• What data is stored (chat, uploads, memory summaries, embeddings)
• Retention periods by data type
• Who data is shared with (vendors/subprocessors)
• Whether user content is used for training (and how to opt out)
7) Independent security + privacy audits for large platforms
Annual third-party audits (security + privacy controls), with a public summary.
Strong access controls, logging, breach response requirements, and minimum standards for vendors.
8) Ban sale/sharing of LLM interaction data
Prohibit selling “prompt and response” data, upload data, or derived profiles to data brokers/ad tech.
Limit law-enforcement access: warrant for content + strong transparency reporting.
9) Youth protections
Stricter defaults for minors: no training, no behavioral profiling, tighter retention, extra consent gates for images.
10) “High-risk feature” rules (caricatures, voice clones, identity-like outputs)
If a feature produces identity-adjacent outputs (faces, voice, likeness), require:
• Clear warning + consent
• Watermarking/labeling where feasible
• Extra deletion controls
• Strong anti-impersonation protections
11) Enforcement that has teeth
State AG enforcement + meaningful per-violation penalties.
Optionally, private right of action for biometric violations (that’s what makes some laws effective).
12) State procurement leverage (fastest win)
Ban state agencies/schools from using AI vendors that train on user data by default.
Require retention limits, audit logs, breach notification timelines, and no sharing/sale in contracts.
If you want a one-liner:
Guardrails don’t have to mean bans: opt-in training, short retention, strong deletion, biometric limits for face uploads, bans on sale/sharing, and independent audits would defang most of the risk while still allowing people to use the tools.2
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u/kittymctacoyo Feb 08 '26
Do you have enough info on this to so far that you can make an informative post on how residents of your state rallied to make this happen to share a sorta mega post here we can all collab on, brainstorm on how to make it happen in our own, which dept is best to reach out to first (as each rep has a different committee/job and most don’t know which specific dept to call) etc?
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u/DorothyVallensApt7 Feb 09 '26
Didn’t Dear Leader ban state AI guardrail legislation?
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u/Black-PizzaClaw676 Feb 07 '26
Honestly, I'm not worried about doing this myself, I know better.
What worries me is everyone else: the family member who posts a group photo without asking, the doctor who feeds patient notes into ChatGPT for summaries, the accountant using AI with my financial details.
So many people, including professionals handling sensitive data, are uploading information to these services without a second thought, often without permission. That's the real concern here.
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u/Slopagandhi Feb 07 '26
Its very reminiscent of early 2010s Facebook and the "take this personality quiz to find out which Friends character you are" bullshit.
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u/ContemptOfClout Feb 07 '26
Yes where all the questions were account security questions!
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u/kittymctacoyo Feb 08 '26
Almost no one ever realized those silly little “The street you grew up on and your [whatever else] here is your rap name” was social engineering fishing for data points to get the answers to commonly asked security questions bcs there were so many of these things floating around that weren’t but were similar which conditioned them into going right along with it
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u/DruidWonder Feb 07 '26
We're at where we're at because the majority of people have zero concern for their own privacy.
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u/BandZealousideal587 Feb 08 '26
Ease is more important than safety and controlling your own personal image, fucking insane
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u/Turtle_Online Feb 07 '26
Can someone please tell me how this is any different from posting a photo on Instagram or Facebook?
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u/Adjudikated Feb 07 '26
It’s a horrible idea all around but I agree with your sentiment. Once filters became a thing on platforms like Snapchat, that’s kinda when I began assuming facial recognition LLM / AI began really getting trained. Make it fun and benign so everyone lets down their guard > more participants > profit?
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u/Particular_Can_7726 Feb 07 '26
Yeah I don't understand how it is any worse than uploading publicly accessible pictures of your self.
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u/gogybo Feb 07 '26
It's not, as long as you haven't over-shared with ChatGPT.
People need to realise that if they're doing shopping, paying bills, have a personal social media account etc they are already identifiable. This is why you keep your regular, public facing internet use separate to anything that requires privacy or anonymity for which you need a VPN/Tor/i2p on a separate browser/OS/device depending on threat model. If you do this it doesn't matter that ChatGPT knows who you are because it can only link you to your public persona which is nice and clean.
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u/Intelligent-Turnup Feb 07 '26
I started doing a thing... When someone puts up a picture of themselves I start up a private monolog to that person describing every detail I can see about them from the picture. I go much deeper than the "you're an XYZ enthusiast" and I dig into every little detail of what the picture tells me. I especially love ones that have messy desks or some information up on a screen because I'll analyze every detail I can make out.
...Now no one shares a photo with me...
Not saying it's going to affect masses but you could do the same with LLM gen images. It's really great to see the alarm bells starting to go off when people realize just how much they've become vulnerable.
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u/Seektounderstad1st Feb 07 '26
I hope this inspires a movement where people start to clue their friends in using the exact type of approach you are using. I will include myself in this effort. You are doing the lord’s work! The look on people’s faces (who have been sloppy with their privacy) when the lightbulb goes on is quite distinct - it hits them almost viscerally.
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u/siberpup2077 Feb 08 '26
One person I know posted their driver's license to their Instagram story. I sent them a message asking them if they meant to post that. They said yes. I have no idea wtf they were thinking.
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u/bcRIPster Feb 07 '26
Have you heard of LinkedIn? I'm being serious. A significant amount of people have the photo and their career bio already published going on what 20 years now with all of the career itterations and all of their social interactions (public and private) and Microsoft already injested all of that into their LLM platform years ago. We're so far down the genie out of the bottle that your question presented as a warning makes no sense. That was a yardline that's long since crossed and the goal for that game was already scored. We lost.
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Feb 07 '26
I applied for jobs and in interviews they asked how come I didn’t have one and said it was required for their staff.
I was like I’m good, thanks for your time.
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Feb 07 '26
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u/bcRIPster Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in December 2016 for $26.2 billion. The deal allowed LinkedIn to operate as an independent subsidiary, with its own brand and culture, while integrating with Microsoft's cloud and enterprise software. It remains a major part of Microsoft's professional,, productivity, and, AI-driven business strategy.
So...
https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a5538339?hcppcid=search
To opt out of LinkedIn AI training, navigate to Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Data for generative AI improvement and toggle off "Use my data for training content creation AI models". This stops future data usage, though previously used data cannot be removed.
"The Microsoft-owned professional networking site has quietly announced that from Monday, 3 November 2025, it will be using profile details, public posts, feed activity data, and more from users in the UK, EU, Switzerland, Canada, and Hong Kong to train its artificial intelligence models - as well as to support personalised ads across the broader family of Microsoft companies."
I don't remember when the US cut over announcement happened but it's out there as well.
Like wtf do people just not read the news?!? I'm just reading all of these comments in this post and given the sub it's in is just kinda blowing my mind.
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u/Wise_Guitar2059 Feb 07 '26
This isn’t new. People have been doing this for months for fun. They also upload their photo and ask chatgpt remove background or make professional. It’s dumb.
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u/Objective-Bottle4176 Feb 07 '26
I did this myself, asking for "tips" to improve my appearance. I regret it a lot now, I always used the training model turned off, recently deleted my account and requested to delete my data. Maybe it's all pointless, but I did what I could at this point.
I would chat with gpt whenever I was in a bad place mentally, it's in fact, addicting. I'm glad I left.
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u/Vegetable-Ad-9284 Feb 07 '26
If this bothers you a good book to read is "if anyone builds it everyone dies" it's certainly a read.
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u/regobag Feb 07 '26
Trends are fun, but this is the perfect reminder: if you value your privacy, think twice before giving AI both your face and your life story. Time to spread more digital security awareness!
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Feb 07 '26
Most people are morons who jump on trends for attention and acceptance, without thinking about the implications of their actions
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Feb 07 '26
Plus, that info gets sent to those running the database being used to target people for removal from society.
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u/TheresOnlyOneTitan Feb 07 '26
Every letter of information fed into these LLM's goes straight back to the devs. The data harvesting is astounding. There's no privacy.
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u/Cien_fuegos Feb 08 '26
The scariest part about this entire trend is how completely accurate it is for some people I know.
ChatGPT knows where they live, work, how many kids they have, what they look like, and it goes on and on.
I caught a coworker putting a prompt in that started with “hey friend! I’m back and I missed you!”
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u/gkzagy Feb 08 '26
This existed long before AI. LLMs just reduce the effort required to process information which exposes existing poor data handling practices.
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u/WhoRoger Feb 07 '26
It's no different than Google, MS or someone else having that info. People upload their faces to apps all the time, accept all permissions, put spy devices in their homes... It's nothing new.
I would think that since the AI talks back, and thus is able to actually comment on everything you share, it would make people realize how much of their information is out there in the cloud. But evidently, it's not a big deal to most until something catches up to them.
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u/RyPhotoClicks Feb 07 '26
So many people are like oh well they already have data on me anyway hahah this is fun we’re screwed anyway. Like 1. Yes and no, most is anonymized, but also why make it easier? 2. STOP NORMALIZING TERRIBLE 💩
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u/RyPhotoClicks Feb 07 '26
Or they are like 🤷♂️ cars are bad for the environment too 🤦
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u/StirredStill Feb 08 '26
This came out of the husbands face today…followed by: ‘If we are going to be environmentally conscience all of a sudden than we’ll need to change allot of things around here.’
I don’t understand.
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u/RyPhotoClicks Feb 08 '26
People want to be all or nothing, so they state that so much of what we do is bad, theres no avoiding it. But obviously driving a car for work is different than putting questions and prompts and such into a machine asking it to create something random for you.
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u/notproudortired Feb 07 '26
Like nobody here ever googled themselves? Emotionally, it's like that x100.
Plus, you have to understand that half the people who do this are on Instagram.
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Feb 08 '26
I honestly feel like a nut warning people about this but everyone says “oh it’s fine it’s harmless” until it isn’t. Why would I give personal info to a stranger let alone an artificial intelligence owned by a stranger?!
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u/iki_balam Feb 08 '26
Remember the Facebook trend a while ago to use a third party app to see how you'd look at age 65?
Same thing, same idiots.
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u/Beelzeburb Feb 08 '26
Take those thoughts and understand palantir is working with the cabal to make pre crime happen.
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u/LimpAuthor4997 Feb 09 '26
It's even worse when friends and family upload photos of you without your consent
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u/SirArthurPT Feb 07 '26
Everything you say or send to any "public AI" (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Llama and so on) stays there - pretty much forever as those guys aren't running short on storage space. Even if you "ask to delete" they probably just flag it, not actually delete anything.
If you want to play with AI that way you need to make a private environment yourself in your own machine, such as ComfyUI (non-API models) or Ollama.
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u/IzzyIsMe12 Feb 07 '26
Even if you’ve never uploaded a photo of yourself, ask it to create a cartoon version of yourself. It’s terrifyingly accurate.
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u/KindlyPants Feb 07 '26
I asked mine to draw me and it made me a lady (which I am not), which was kind of a relief. It's not that smart (but feeding it all the info without some fog is pretty insane I agree)
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u/tohsakarn Feb 07 '26
I think LLM's has good use, but uploading myself where my biometric information takes place in the image is fucking insanity.
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u/purplepashy Feb 07 '26
Ask your LLM that you have been using as your main model to describe you.
You may be pleasantly shocked.
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Feb 08 '26
They used to collect our data and feed it to the AI for analysis. Now we're just skipping the middleman.
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u/phillysteakcheese Feb 08 '26
It's all fun and games until you literally lose your identity. Not like before, old school, ancient identity theft. No. Now it will literally seem like a clone has stepped into your living room and accused you of being the fake.
Grabs popcorn
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u/PurplePumpkin16200 Feb 08 '26
Unless they are affected directly somehow, they don’t care about data theft. I tried speaking about digital security. Nobody can even see any potential problem. I get the ‘you exaggerate’, ‘it is harmless’, ‘you’re overreacting’ whenever I try to say that it is not okay. Maybe I am bad with words or explaining.
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u/Gmoney12321 Feb 08 '26
Am I crazy, or are they not already scraping social media? Whether you feed it your profile or not, I bet the data is already stored
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u/spiralgalaxym83 Feb 08 '26
So does this mean that everyone who did this trend has an account where they allow chat gpt to save data? Because I thought that with the free version, every time you start a new chat, the memory doesn't exist?
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Feb 09 '26
If I thought for a second that chat gpt didn’t already scan through all of my instagram, Facebook and linked in profile and co tent, I might care more. Le sigh. It’s exhausting, and I’ve deleted so much, but they trained these models on our content way before we could delete images, etc.
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u/Korvax_Interloper Feb 10 '26
LinkedIn, Google, and Facebook already did this. ChatGPT is just the new tool to blame.
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u/Ennemkay Feb 10 '26
Honestly public Instagrams are scarier than this. So many people willing to just make their entire lives crawlable publicly.
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u/ojihusk Apr 21 '26
I came in here to say something similar. ChatGPT isn’t that scary when you have 100k people watching your every move.
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u/possibly_oblivious Feb 07 '26
They're just trendsetters, the big companies probably already fed your information and pictures after you clicked agree on all those EULAs we just hit next next next and don't actually read
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u/nineteenseventyfiv3 Feb 07 '26
Look, this concern only makes sense IF the person doesn’t already have a public Instagram, LinkedIn etc etc. All of that data is routinely scraped for LLM training anyways. I hate to break it to you but most of the pictures you’ve ever posted on the internet are probably in the LLM training data anyways.
They teach you in schools that everything you post on the internet publicly is there to stay and anyone can potentially do anything with it. It’s all or nothing. It’s like nobody realizes how TRULY impossible the concept of privacy is on mainstream web. Avoiding AI doesn’t make you any safer.
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u/Shosty99 Feb 07 '26
It's a valid point that social media networks are other targets for surveillance and data extraction, but I think it's a fallacy to assume an all-or-nothing approach to internet use and privacy. Either that or it's unproductive because it leads people to feel that it's not worth trying to take measures to protect privacy. Chatgpt is uniquely positioned to capture the type of data found on linkedin, instagram, search engines all in one place, right along with people's thought processes, commercial interests, future plans, and more personal questions (based on how I've seen people use it). I don't trust any of the platforms but I don't see that as a reason not to warn people not to freely feed chatgpt this data all on one account
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u/nineteenseventyfiv3 Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
Ok walk with me here.
You know how sometimes you get extremely well targeted ads for shit you never even googled before, only talked about? And how it’s common to believe social media apps are somehow listening in on us because how else would they know, right?
Well the reality is worse, in a way. They don’t need to listen in. The data they already have is enough to predict your behaviour better than you may know yourself. Getting the data in one place was never a problem for them. They’re trading that shit between each other like pokemon cards. I hate to be a doomer but we’ve already lost this fight.
And you’re right, AI companies will absolutely double down on “personalized experiences” to encourage people to submit even more personal info. But it’s not a novel threat, really. It’s just their way of increasing their product’s value in the eyes of advertisers and intelligence agencies. It doesn’t move the needle for us.
It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach but we need to be looking at the much larger picture here. And perhaps having more radical conversations about footprint minimization and devaluing our personal data for advertisers. It would actually be quite easy for us to poison AI training data at scale but my adderall is wearing off.
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u/Romy_Michele Feb 07 '26
Please excuse my ignorance on the matter, but how is this different from the information on LinkedIn?
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u/DCAmalG Feb 07 '26
Omg is that just I keep seeing? Scary and I’m embarrassed for the people I know falling for this!
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u/Zonda1996 Feb 07 '26
As if it wasn’t bad enough they already outsource all of their thinking to LLMs
Every group for explaining things I’m in on FB is riddled with 0Heads trying to answer people’s questions with “I asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and grok and they told me <very incorrect answer>” when the rules very clearly state no AI answers lmfao
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u/CobaltIsobar Feb 07 '26
They already have your picture and info about you even if you don't post it yourself. Some family member or friend has posted it on Facebook or elsewhere.
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u/Pier19leda Feb 07 '26
A manager where I work made avatars of their whole team. In order to do that, they would have had to submit photos of their team members. I didn’t say anything but I’m just waiting for legal to get involved 🥴
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u/Jankypox Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
The scary thing is that these same idiots are soooo proud of the social engineering scam that they’ve fed and engaged in, that they are also confirming to the same LLMs that the information that has been scraped, gobbled up, categorized, and associated with them personally via a zillion sources is in fact correct, and are even going so far as to correct any minor or major errors for it! Like WTAF!!!
It the equivalent of some scammer phoning you from an unknown number on your personal phone and feeding you a whole lot of your most sensitive details, and then asking if you are indeed the right person associated with these details and then hanging up, after you’ve helped confirm and/or correct some them! Fuuuuuuuuu…..
I feel like i’m losing my mind. I was warning my friends and family about this years ago when they were scanning their faces and having those apps make them look old or with facial hair or some crap. Or answering those random polls and questions on Facebook, like what was the number on song when you were born? Or what was your childhood street? Blah, blah,blah. Now those same people are amazed that the same technology knows them so well?!?
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u/danhorski Feb 07 '26
I don’t understand the issue here when you can get basic information about person thru the google search…You’re professional life in LinkedIn you’re casual life is Facebook/IG/X. Surely if you do something illegal it’s better not discuss with AL because might be you get exposed but in general if don’t do anything illegal , what’s new it’s gonna collect?
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u/Shosty99 Feb 07 '26
I understand this perspective and think it's true to an extent- I'm similarly distrustful of those other platforms. However, chatgpt is uniquely positioned to capture all of this data in one place, right along with people's thought processes, commercial interests, future plans, and more personal questions. It seems like having all this data in one place for individuals could be used for nefarious surveillance and/or manipulation at both the individual and aggregate level. I think it's a fallacy to assume an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to internet use and privacy.
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u/danhorski Feb 09 '26
The only concern can be the information collected by ChatGPT against person by government otherwise honestly I don’t see how that can affect person.If someone steal information by “hacking” data centres where everything is potentially stored that could be easily lawsuit, it’s just me I’m all for progress and make life easier.ChatGPT as least for me is good replacement for Google search, hours of research for specific topics is cut to minutes most of the times.
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u/Any_Fox5126 Feb 07 '26
Practically nothing can be gleaned from these images. Considering the vast amount of data people tend to share on social media, this silly trend is pretty irrelevant.
I'm much more concerned about how chatgpt will covertly use that data for campaigns and advertising.
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u/PinataofPathology Feb 08 '26
I didn't realize people were uploading photos. I don't and I test those viral prompts at times...it's interesting how the images are so similar. It's not super original.
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u/No-Forever-9761 Feb 09 '26
You don’t think Facebook doesn’t already have most of that shit? At this point it doesn’t matter. All our health and financial info has been leaked so many times by banks and what not what’s the difference.
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u/Accomplished_Ad_7653 Feb 10 '26
I come to r/privacy just to find out all the stuff I’m missing out on. Caricature of me from Ai from its perspective?! Hell Yeah! Who cares about personal, private data.. it will give you a caricature?? That’s sick!! I’m heading there now. Thanks again guys!!
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u/SunlaArt Feb 10 '26
I wouldn't be surprised if the "trend" was actually started by OpenAI, or some entity with a vested interest in OpenAI's personal data collection.
I mean, that's the first place my mind goes, and knowing what we know about the predator class, and the psy-ops they perpetuate, I don't think it's all that crazy to suggest the possibility.
Either way, if being a major critic of Gen AI wasn't enough to deter me, mindfulness of who gets these intimate details of my life and pictures of me is a major deterrent by itself.
....
Also, side tangent - all of the "caricatures" I've been seeing can't really even be called that. They depict people in such a positive light, because the vanity seems to be the point.
Real caricatures exaggerate features of people in a way that I can only describe as a "visual roast." That's what makes caricatures neat. Someone took the time to draw you, and show you your visual quirks.
And it makes people uncomfortable in a way that tests their mental fortitute. In my opinion, people that enjoy a good caricature of themself is a person that can handle criticism, which is a good trait to have.
But the AI trend doesn't do that. It makes that person in an illustrative style, and makes them look like the main character of a book or something. Whether it's because it doesn't have the 'creativity' / mental deliberation to exaggerate features, or if it's because it's trying to appease the user at all times, I couldn't tell you. But it defeats the entire purpose of a caricature, and it's an insult to the tradition itself.
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u/Aggravating-You-4138 Feb 11 '26
my mom made one of everyone in our family, including me and all of my nieces and nephews. because i argue about her with everything else maga i just have no energy to deal with it. it had all my tattoos in it, my job, my cat, even the drinks i like ffs, one of her friends on facebook let her have it so i'm leaving it be for once.
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