OpenAI disables ChatGPT's Bing feature to prevent users from jumping paywalls

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OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, have disabled the chatbot's Bing search feature because it allowed paid subscribers to jump paywalls on other sites.

"We have learned that the ChatGPT Browse beta can occasionally display content in ways we don't want. For example, if a user specifically asks for a URL's full text, it might inadvertently fulfill this request," the company mentioned in a post explaining the decision.

Displaying full text of the URL in this way, allowed ChatGPT Plus users to bypass paywalls and other privacy measures on websites, potentially accessing content that other users paid for.

OpenAI is already facing legal battles over the way it uses data to train its language models. Two US authors have alleged that OpenAI is using their works to "train" the models.

For now, OpenAI has disabled the "Browse with Bing" feature, "out of an abundance of caution" and says it will enable it again as quickly as possible and fix the error, "in order to do right by content owners".