It's precisely that perspective that I think should sink a magistrate, hundreds of times over.
This always has been like this, you are in HN, did you think E2EE was just a LARP? It's not even like this is some Patriot Act gag-order bullshit, if you could claim an exception for privacy for any user data, 99% of companies would be immune to discovery.
So no, the spooks are not gonna look at your deepest secrets that you put in CleverBot 9000, but giving your data to Sam "Give me your eyes for 20 bucks" Altman was stupid. Yes, if you are capable of reaching this site it's your *fault*, you should know better.
Second, what colorable argument? There is no colorable argument that entitles you to "discover everything everyone types into the Internet" so there's no need to pretend there is for the purpose of this conversation. Feel free to posit one. You didn't, because none exist. Discovery is limited and narrow. Here, what the court is demanding from OpenAI is limited and narrow, unlike the ridiculous scenario you offered.
In the view of American law, as it is currently written and settled, when what you've typed into the internet is relevant to ongoing litigation, yes, there is no expectation of privacy from discovery for anything you typed into the particular service on the internet that's being litigated. Likewise, there's no expectation of privacy if you're not either litigant, but you have been subpoenaed, and forced to testify. The fifth amendment only protects you from self-incrimination.
There are far more horrifying aspects of American law, as it is currently written and settled, I can't say I have the energy to be all that outraged over this one, as opposed to any of the other insane shit that's currently going on.
When people are routinely being disappeared without due process or legal recourse, the issue of 'a few lawyers sworn to secrecy going over some user queries under the constraints of a judge in an active litigation' is not actually a serious issue. This category of thing happens all the time, and it's uncomfortable for third parties involved, but a millenium of common law has generally put the needs of the courts reaching a fair decision in a case above the needs of unrelated third parties to not be bothered by them.
Losing this case would be an incredibly serious issue for OpenAI's business model though, though, which is why it's throwing shit at the wall to see if it sticks, and is shouting for sympathy to anyone who wants to listen. I can't say I give a fig about their financial well-being, though.
This is a good point because chat gpt is The Internet and any order pertaining to a specific website applies to every website. Similarly if the police get a warrant to search a house it applies to every house on the earth
Also not deleting user-submitted content is the same thing as mass surveillance. For example this website doesn’t allow you to delete comments after a certain period, so Hacker News is a surveillance apparatus