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Did I Accidentally Consent to Building a Digital Doppelgänger?

Summer is in full swing, and I'm still spending just as much time in the digital landscape(s) as I am outside at the beach. I'm not mad at it... Plus, Florida is very moody and conditional about how much time it permits me to be outside. Anyway. My awareness of my own digital footprint started as a recognition of an ad on Facebook and me telling myself: "wow! I just was looking this up to buy" as I scrolled past more and more light-gray AISIC running shoes, or 'older-guy kicks' like my wife lovingly describes them. Now, years after these few small recognitions of the footprint I was leaving, I ask ChatGPT for options to make my own playground for our daughter, and the first response in that conversation included my daughter's name. It's what it is. Over the past two years, since we've used the generative/OpenAI service I mentioned, her name has come up. It clicked that much of what was in the service's memory cache was about me. Did I approve of this somewhere? Was Itunes' infamous too-long-didn't-read EULA right when I downloaded ChatGPT, and I just scrolled down all the way like I did in the mid-to-late 2000's just to quickly download the new Kid Cudi album?

I didn't understand or care what the EULA was about then.... and now, I don't think it was really about consent. It was about having the user agree to the collection, analysis, retention, sharing, and use of data to improve the app. Apple was crazy ahead of the curve. The Reyman article this week argues that participation on the social web involves a trade-off that users don't fully recognize (an example was me with ChatGPT, even though I'm not particularly mad at it). Every interaction- including something as microscopic as the force of our touch pad clicks or the haste with which we navigate to a new page- is culminating in invisible data about our behaviors and preferences. 

So, when I searched for playground DIY sets for Hazel, I thought I was asking about a trip to Lowe's. From ChatGPT's perspective, I was revealing even more than I already have about my interests, family relationships, and purchasing intentions online. A single chat provided the platform with dozens of data points. So really, even when I feel 'in control', I think the objective truth is that users only have partial visibility into what that actually means. I've really been building a digital version of myself for two years, chat by chat, piece by piece. I wasn't upset by the platform's use of the data because I didn't react to it as malicious, just surprised that OpenAI remembers all these data points. I mean, I'm not scared of leaving that digital footprint, especially when it can help me make wonderful creations for my math students like this: 



There is something to losing the human touch through co-creativity with AI. Although I feel like my crazy thoughts and fun 'lore' ideas are established first with myself through living, and then expressed through that co-creative relationship with ChatGPT/AI platforms. Just warn me next time through a more concise EULA if you're going to drop the color of my bathroom towels, though. 

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