By skyforbes 
When generative AI exploded into mainstream use, many of us carried over mental models from other technologies we understood better. The most persistent misconception? That chatting with AI works like using Google — that your queries get collected, indexed, and served up to the next person who asks a similar question.
Even more confusing is the widespread belief that ChatGPT represents some fundamentally new privacy threat — that it’s categorically more data insecure than the dozen other cloud services we use daily without a second thought.
Neither of these beliefs is accurate. This fundamental misunderstanding has created unnecessary anxiety while obscuring the actual privacy considerations we should be paying attention to — which, it turns out, are exactly the same as those for your email, cloud storage, and every other internet-connected service you already use.
Let’s clear up the confusion and focus on what really matters.
The Big Misconception: AI as Search Engine
Many people imagine that when they type a prompt into ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI chatbot, their conversation becomes part of a searchable database. They worry that someone else could stumble across their private questions, embarrassing queries…