Your AI chatbot remembers more than you think. According to Kara Sprague, CEO of cybersecurity firm HackerOne, what you type into an AI tool doesn’t simply disappear when you’re done with it. It can be stored, and it may be used to train the model. That means every question, every detail, every stray comment you’ve tossed into that chat box could still be sitting on a server somewhere. Meanwhile, Sprague warns that AI is making it easier for criminals to hack personal devices, because software carries more vulnerabilities and bad actors now have sophisticated AI of their own to hunt for them.
The good news is that protecting yourself doesn’t require any technical skill. Sprague’s advice comes down to two habits. First, treat an AI chatbot like a stranger: never share your address, phone number, or bank information, and don’t type anything you wouldn’t say out loud to someone you just met. Second, open the privacy settings on whichever AI tool you use and turn off model training and memory retention. It takes about thirty seconds, and it limits how much of your information gets kept and reused.
One more step worth adding to the routine: verify what these tools tell you. AI answers can sound confident and still be wrong, so check anything that matters against a second source. Sprague also notes that ethical hackers are working behind the scenes to test systems and fix weaknesses before criminals can exploit them, which is a quiet comfort in all of this. A couple of settings changes and a little healthy skepticism go a long way.
Have you checked your AI app’s privacy settings yet? Tell us what you found.
