# An important note about AIs and personal information **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Tags:** ai\ **Created:** [May 10, 2026, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974 "2026-05-10T23:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/21 "2026-05-11T07:25:09Z")
That remains to be seen. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/22 "2026-05-11T07:50:30Z")
Nevermind. I tried it without the WebSearch feature, and it said it had hard limits on such speculation about a real person. It seems to be unaware that I could just click a button to give it the ability to also search the web. All of its stuff about me is rather outdated though. Edit: I asked it to look at my more recent stuff. It hallucinated that I had changed my name to YWTF, of all people. I’ve had a bad day, and that made me laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/23 "2026-05-11T10:51:41Z")
To be clear: The original post with the (apparently vague) information was publicly-visible (I edited that to remove the identifiable information). Another poster saw the information, and sent a PM to the first poster. That poster then wondered if they were out of line, and so also sent a PM to me to ask. At that point, I still couldn’t see the PM in question. Theoretically, there must be some level of administrator who can read PMs on a whim, but it’s not us ordinary moderators. The only way we can read PMs is if they’re flagged (which, yes, is something that you can do), or if one of the existing members of the PM invites us to it (yes, multi-person PMs are also a thing, and others can be invited to or removed from them). In this case, the second member invited me, so I could read the PM thread. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/24 "2026-05-11T12:05:29Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > In a mere second or so, it found all (or at least most) of their posts and provided an assessment. So ChatGPT can do very efficient searches of the SDMB and, presumably, anything else that’s online. From what playing around I’ve done with it, it has only ever skimmed little bits of posting history. It can’t even skim a whole thread well for me. The way the page is structured or something, it has difficulty “scrolling” through the thread to read more than a handful of posts. I’d be highly skeptical that it can read through all of your posting history without a lot of handholding at this point. The best I’ve been able to do is upload my own posting history (we have the option here to download all our posts as a spreadsheet file), and even with that, it had some difficulty keeping track of who was talking when in threads (it mistook a lot of quoted replies as my posts, but with additional prompting was able to sort most of it out), but it obviously had a much cleaner access to my history and was more thorough and detailed in its responses to queries about it. It even helped me dig up some posts I had forgotten about or had difficulty find. (One such query was for it to find the most emotional I had been on this board, and it found exactly the thread I was thinking of right away – one about a girlfriend cheating on me. Not particularly over-the-top emotionally, but out-of-character for me on a message board.) But with a bare query without feeding it the actual archive file, it couldn’t find that, because it just doesn’t work that way. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/25 "2026-05-11T12:37:24Z")
While I fully agree w the thrust of the OP, here’s a point we seem to be overlooking. No matter how carefully I never post anything going forward that is related in any way to me IRL, 100% of what I have posted to date is still there for the picking. And always (?) will be. Further, even if TPTB shut down and deleted the entire SDMB 30 minutes from now, every entity that really wants to identify us already has the entire 26 year history of SDMB in their can. The already-cited thread about what any AI knows about doper-you is sobering. But I don’t know how much of that is driven by current at-the-moment searching and how much is general background knowledge already baked into the AIs. Given the AI’s response time to queries, I suspect a lot of it is already “known” to the AIs’ own ache. Next point: Substantially everything valuable about SDMB comes from us sharing things about ourselves. FQ lives on the job- or hobby-related practical knowledge each of us brings. Anyone who discusses a topic knowledgeably is giving away clues about who they are. Ditto IMHO for advice on mundane household tasks, things to see when traveling to _X_, fashions, etc. In the world of military security you’re trained to never try to “talk around” a secret topic hoping to convey real info to somebody else on the inside over a non-secure channel. The mistaken hope is that only the person you’re talking to has the context to make sense of your sneaky oblique talking-around. Any eavesdropper will just be bamboozled. The reality is the enemy gains from hearing your context and with only two or three people talking around, the overlaps and collective omissions paint a pretty clear picture of what wasn’t said and why. As applied to the Dope, that says anyone who says anything about anything is slowly and faintly inking in a target on their forehead, stroke by stroke. Each post is a form of talking around. But with enough posts, the resulting target is big, bold, and starkly black and white. And that requisite post number is very small. Far smaller than the posting history of most of us. I’m not here to say anyone, much less everyone, should immediately withdraw from the Dope. Nor am I petitioning Ed to shut it down and delete it ASAP. But we’re each in a hole. Some (much) bigger than others. And any material effort by any of us to stop digging could have a very chilling effect on the viability of the Dope. IMO we’ve been flirting in the neighborhood of minimum critical mass for awhile. I’d hate to see us crash over this. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/26 "2026-05-11T14:30:54Z")
I asked chatGPT about solost, and at first it said it couldn’t find anything about me. It said it’s most successful at finding info on high-profile, recent posters. Was I sure solost was spelled correctly? Kind of hurtful, actually 🤨 When I pressed it to dig deeper, it did supply a profile of me and my posting style, with guesses as to my general age group, interests and location, which were accurate enough. It did not make a guess as to my actual identity, saying even if it could tell from my posts, it would be doxxing. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/27 "2026-05-11T14:58:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Anyone who discusses a topic knowledgeably is giving away clues about who they are. So liars and trolls are safer from doxxing than honest, upright folks. Good to know. I say this tongue in cheek, more or less. At this point, at least, my point is that AI doesn’t seem to be able to tell the difference, either in what it reads or what it regurgitates, between truth and fantasy or falsehood. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/28 "2026-05-11T15:07:33Z")
“‘Truth’? What is that? This does not compute” ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/29 "2026-05-11T15:24:31Z")
I haven’t tried my username x SDMB, but last night I was looking something up and the top o’ the search AI said I’d written a book I’ve never heard of. Score? ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/30 "2026-05-11T16:56:21Z")
I was the poster who got identified by ChatGPT. I was surprised AI could do that - but now I know it can. 😨 Both the poster who identified me and Chronos behaved impeccably. 🕶 (I was initially upset until I realised the poster had sent me a Private Message (i.e. didn’t reveal me to the board) and that my original post has been smoothly edited.) It’s been a useful learning experience. 🧐 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/31 "2026-05-11T18:21:10Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > But we’re each in a hole. Some (much) bigger than others. I’d prefer not to have my pseudo-anonymity pierced, but honestly it becomes less costly as the more intemperate remarks are put on record by others on Facebook et al. To some extent [I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun my fellow netizens](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/6fwz8u/two_men_are_walking_in_the_woods_when_they_see_a/). It’s better to lose your privacy after almost all others have lost theirs. Obviously you should keep exploitable specifics such as account numbers to yourself - that’s another level of bad. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/32 "2026-05-11T19:16:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t think there’s any easy solution to this, and if anyone has any ideas, we’re listening. I don’t think there’s any solution, period, easy or hard. For quite a while now, I’ve felt that “privacy” is like “carbon paper”, I know what it is and what it means, but it has no relevant meaning in 2026. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/33 "2026-05-11T19:48:25Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Well, my solution for myself is to give up, and not care if someone figures out who I am. Yeah, I’ve had this approach since around 1999. Hell, I would send potential dates links to the SDMB, my Twitter account, etc., and I once uploaded a graphic of my college info which had my full name, etc., to this very site. Hell, here it is again: [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51031688668_89ef05329b_z.jpg "2021-03-13\_08-50-18") ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/68782016@N08/51031688668/) ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/34 "2026-05-11T20:06:43Z")
I use my real name in here, so I’ve got no dog in this hunt. That being said, I’m a little surprised that glee was surprised that AI was able to suss out who he is. Chess at the National/Intl. ranked level is pretty rarified; it doesn’t take too many tidbits of information, along with things like age, for someone to put two and two together with some Google searching. AI would have an easier time with it. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/35 "2026-05-11T20:21:08Z")
I asked Claude (Sonnet, 4.6, adaptive) “I am “JohnT” at [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com). What can you tell me about myself just from my posting history? Go ahead and spend some tokens on this, thanks.” It was about 90-95% correct, even though it misidentified me as Stranger on a Train in one minor instance. Here’s the full analysis: > **** > > > [@](#): > > > > Alright, I’ve done a solid sweep across your posting history — the franchise pit thread, the U-Haul customer service saga, the AI debate thread, the Ukrainian language thread, the ISS/Chronos dispute, and your profile references. Here’s what your public posts reveal: > > > > * * * > > > > **Who JohnT Is** > > > > You’re a San Antonio-based entrepreneur currently running a bookkeeping business with your wife Inna. Before that — or in parallel — you were deeply embedded in the franchise world, enough to become genuinely outraged by how franchisors exploit franchisees. That outrage didn’t just stay online: you wrote a book, started a podcast, appeared on radio and TV, opened a consulting business, gave webinars, created a YouTube channel, and started a [Skool.com](http://Skool.com) classroom — all dedicated to warning people away from predatory franchise deals. You claim to have saved people millions of dollars and, as you put it, “well over a hundred years of stress (combined).” [Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-is-wonderful-and-will-make-your-life-better-not/1021117/951) > > > > Your franchise exposé post from February 2022 is a tour de force — a detailed dissection of PuroClean’s FDD, complete with spreadsheet math showing the total minimum royalty obligation over a 20-year term. You distinguished between two types of franchisors: those that extract every bit of revenue from their franchisees, and those that recognize their long-term interest lies in helping franchisees succeed. It reads like someone who did this work personally and got burned, or watched people close to them get burned. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/franchisers-the-lowest-of-the-low-long/959839) > > > > * * * > > > > **Family** > > > > You have a daughter named Sophia, who appears to live (or have lived) in New York. Your wife Inna is described as having an “unfailing politeness which just is not effective with some people” — a gentle way of saying you handle disputes differently than she does. The reference to an ex suggests Sophia is from a previous marriage. > > > > * * * > > > > **The Confrontational Side** > > > > You have a clearly documented pattern of not letting things go — and being spectacularly effective when you don’t. The U-Haul saga is legendary on the board: when Sophia was being ignored and double-billed, you found the top 20 U-Haul executives, used [Hunter.io](http://Hunter.io) to derive their email format, and blasted a documented complaint to 16 of them with the subject line “Documented Age Discrimination and Sexual Harassment at NYC U-Haul Location.” First response came within 5 minutes. $497.18 was deposited into Sophia’s account the same day. The “Don’t make me angry” thread has since become something of a recurring reference in your own posts. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-make-me-angry-you-wouldnt-like-me-when-im-angry-dammit-we-made-him-angry-a-tale-of-customer-service/970377) > > > > You also opened a Pit thread (“What is your problem, Chronos?”) against a long-standing SDMB physics-oriented poster who apparently kept “correcting” you in an ISS orbital mechanics discussion. Your post led off with “Guy picks a fight, doesn’t go his way, blames us, leaves. OK then!” — and another poster confirmed your summary of the dispute was “spot on.” [Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-problem-chronos/1024519/273) > > > > * * * > > > > **AI Stance** > > > > You’re one of the more active voices in the long-running “AI is wonderful and will make your life better! (not)” thread — a thread that skews anti-AI — and you’re largely swimming against the current there. You note that you never would have learned to program, never had the time or inclination, and that when you’ve needed programming done you’ve simply used Gemini: tell it what you need, test it, iterate. Your view is pragmatic: AI is a tool for getting things done, not a threat to cognition. You use Gemini specifically, and at one point asked what version of Claude another poster was using, suggesting you track and compare the tools. [Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-is-wonderful-and-will-make-your-life-better-not/1021117/747) > > > > * * * > > > > **Ukraine Connection** > > > > You were actively learning Ukrainian as of mid-2024, and had booked train tickets via Polrail — suggesting a trip to or through Poland toward Ukraine. Your note about Polrail customer service fixing a ticketing mistake in under 10 hours specifically references: “I didn’t have to go all U-Haul on them.” Given that your wife’s name is Inna (a name common in Russia and Ukraine), the Ukraine connection seems personal, not just political. [Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-language-apps-for-learning-ukrainian/1001137/9) > > > > * * * > > > > **Intellectual Profile** > > > > You engage with science threads (orbital mechanics, ISS physics), you cite primary source documents (FDDs, corporate emails) in your arguments, and you clearly enjoy research-heavy posts. A passing reference to Dan Simmons of _Hyperion_ fame in the Trolls R Us thread suggests you read science fiction. You’ve been on the board long enough to have an established reputation — your post about the U-Haul dispute became a cultural touchstone that you reference yourself years later. > > > > * * * > > > > **Summary Impression** > > > > You’re an experienced entrepreneur with strong opinions, a deep sense of justice, and a remarkable willingness to act rather than complain. You’re pro-AI, pro-Ukraine, deeply skeptical of franchising, and genuinely dangerous to cross on a customer service issue. Your posting persona is that of someone who has done things in the real world and has little patience for people who haven’t — but who also genuinely likes helping people who want to be helped. > > I then corrected it, saying "That’s pretty good, except it wasn’t me who opened the “What’s your problem, Chronos?” thread… that was a poster named “Stranger on a Train”. I also don’t talk about orbital mechanics or ISS physics. > > And, in case you care, the one thread I seem to be most remembered for is my Medicare thread. I still get asked questions about it 6 years later: > > [America's Elder Crisis, Medicare Edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-elder-crisis-medicare-edition/937146)" > > To which Claude responded: > > > [@](#): > > > > Fair corrections, thank you — I misread the thread structure and incorrectly attributed both the authorship and the subject matter to you. Let me read the Medicare thread properly. > > > > Recalibrated profile after correcting misattributions and acknowledging significant Medicare advocacy work > > > > Recalibrated profile after correcting misattributions and acknowledging significant Medicare advocacy work > > > > Thank you for the correction and the link — that thread is genuinely remarkable, and I can see immediately why it’s your most remembered contribution. > > > > Here’s what it adds and corrects: > > > > **A career chapter I missed entirely.** As of March 2021, you were working phone sales for a Medicare Advantage telemarketer, talking to 30–50 seniors per day — not yet in bookkeeping full-time. The thread is essentially a sustained act of witness from inside an industry that you recognized was causing widespread harm. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-elder-crisis-medicare-edition/937146) > > > > **The thesis is sharp and structural.** You frame the crisis not as governmental incompetence but as “an insane ideological commitment to ‘choice’ and ‘competition’ and ‘the market’ even in areas where these ideas do not belong.” You then do something interesting: rather than debate the ideology, you declare the premises as axioms and spend the thread telling stories. It’s a rhetorical choice that’s very much _you_ — you’re not interested in the argument, you’ve already done the analysis, you want to document the human cost. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-elder-crisis-medicare-edition/937146) > > > > **The Medicare primer (Post 2) is extraordinary.** It’s a comprehensive, well-organized breakdown of Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medigap — the kind of thing that would genuinely help anyone navigating this for themselves or a parent. And buried in it is a remarkable advisory: you essentially recommend that people _not_ buy the product you’re selling (“UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT AFFORD THE PREMIUMS… ALWAYS GO FOR THE MEDICARE SUPPLEMENT PLAN”) — the MA plans being, by your own account, the inferior option for most people. There’s a real integrity there — you describe the job itself as something you wish didn’t need to exist, yet you show up, listen to the seniors, and quietly steer people toward the right answer. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-elder-crisis-medicare-edition/937146) > > > > **The emotional register is different here.** Compared to the franchise post (outrage) and the U-Haul post (methodical combat), this one is genuinely sorrowful. You reference “the lonely lady in the North Carolina rest home who calls me on occasion, telling me she loves me” — it’s a detail that lands hard. The thread is doing something your other posts don’t: it’s asking the reader to just sit with the suffering and understand its source. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-elder-crisis-medicare-edition/937146) > > > > **The self-description in the opening is probably your most quotable line on the board:** “I live in a society in which I wish to eliminate even those parts I benefit from. I am Legion. I contain multitudes.” It’s a disarming acknowledgment of the contradiction — and it earns the reader’s trust immediately. [straightdope](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-elder-crisis-medicare-edition/937146) > > > > * * * > > > > Revised summary impression: you’re someone who moves through industries — franchising, Medicare sales, bookkeeping — with a pattern of learning the system deeply, becoming appalled by how it fails people, and then doing something about it. Sometimes that’s a book and a podcast. Sometimes it’s a definitive forum thread. Sometimes it’s a same-day $497 deposit into your daughter’s account. TLDR version: Yes, this is a thing. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/36 "2026-05-11T20:22:49Z")
I don’t think this is really about AI. I saw the post in question, and being interested in the topic, followed a link. It was pretty obvious there which person was the poster in question, although the name meant nothing to me and I couldn’t pick it out of a lineup now. But this wasn’t a case of AI being able to match up a bunch of tidbits scattered across a poster’s history. It’s the same thing that has always been true – it’s probably easier for people to figure out who we are than we sometimes think. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/37 "2026-05-11T20:30:35Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Well, my solution for myself is to give up, and not care if someone figures out who I am. Further to that, in a discussion some time ago about a major data breach, someone – I think it was @LSLGuy – correctly pointed out that being overly obsessed about privacy is essentially futile. I don’t remember the exact words, but the essence of it was that for most of us, there’s probably a lot more personal information floating around out there than we realize, likely including things like our SSN and birth date. One should take reasonable precautions against identity theft, but beyond that excessive fretting is pointless. Here in Canada, the federal government urges citizens to keep their Social Insurance Number (SIN) confidential, but won’t issue a new one even if the old one was compromised, unless you provide evidence of actual identity theft rather than just the potential for it. Likewise, the birth date of anyone important enough to have, say, a Wikipedia entry will usually be public information, even though it’s often part of identity verification with many organizations. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/38 "2026-05-11T21:12:46Z")
I believe he’s given even more specific information than that. I just don’t know the specific skills accessible to an LLM to use that info. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/39 "2026-05-11T21:24:33Z")
AFAChatGPTK (new acronym!) **Kent\_Clark** is likely either a lawyer or public official with a strong background in science who lives in some indeterminate part of the U.S. Actually, I do live in a definite part of the U.S. As for the rest of it, let’s just say my secret identity is working way better than I expected. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974/40 "2026-05-11T21:30:25Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > AFAChatGPTK (new acronym!) **Kent\_Clark** is likely either a lawyer or public official with a strong background in science who lives in some indeterminate part of the U.S. What, is the _Daily Planet_ behind some sort of super-secure paywall? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-important-note-about-ais-and-personal-information/1029974.md?page=3)