404media.co via Reddit

404 Media: OpenAI 'Project Lily' Hires Hundreds of Contractors to Read Real ChatGPT Prompts

By Alexis Dufresne Published September 14, 2026 at 16:58 UTC

OpenAI AI Ethics Surveillance ai-business

Summary

404 Media details 'Project Lily,' OpenAI's internal codename for hiring hundreds of contractors to read real ChatGPT users' prompts—many containing sensitive personal information—and rate the responses on a 1-7 scale. Contractors are recruited by Crossing Hurdles and paid via Mercor (one worker reports over $50/hour). ChatGPT has more than 900M users and model training is turned on by default for consumer plans; the piece notes Anthropic and Google run similar human-review programs.

Shared on Bluesky by 17 AI experts (top 5 by trust)

Olivia Guest @olivia.science: Make real how much labour is stolen and hidden with it too. →
404 Media @404media.co: Humans are reading ChatGPT users’ prompts to improve OpenAI’s models, and those chats can include sensitive, personal information, according… →
Chris Brockett @chrisbrockett.bsky.social amplified

@kateclancy.bsky.social

Inside project Lily and the people reading your ChatGPT queries:
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Anil Dash @anildash.com amplified

evacide @evacide.bsky.social

This article makes two important points: 1. People using ChatGPT expose sensitive data because they think it is private 2. OpenAI relies on hundreds of human contractors reviewing replies to improve their models www.4…
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social: Your ChatGPT chats are not private, and humans are reading them. Anthropic's Claude too. More here: www.404media.co/inside-proje... →

Originally reported by 404media.co

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Original headline: 404 Media: OpenAI 'Project Lily' Hires Hundreds of Contractors to Read Real ChatGPT Prompts