OpenAI began on December 11, 2015, as a nonprofit organization. The founders, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and others, stated the mission was to advance artificial intelligence in ways that benefit all humanity. They promised open research and no profit-driven control.
The nonprofit act lasted until March 2019, less than 4 years in. At that point, OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary, OpenAI LP, to attract investment. The nonprofit kept a stake. The operation now functions as a for-profit company. Revenue comes mostly from subscription plans for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Team, and Enterprise.
The January 2026 update supercharged ChatGPT's memory for paying users. With reference chat history on, the system scours your entire chat record, grabs whatever details it wants, and drops them into new replies. If it pulls from an old chat, you (are supposed to) get a link to see what it used.
This follows the April 10, 2025, change that first let ChatGPT reference all past conversations for more tailored answers. Free users got a reduced version of memory that references recent chats starting back on June 3, 2025.
ChatGPT mixes the memories you ask it to keep with everything it learns from your chat history. It scoops up your uploads, documents, images, and data from any linked accounts. The system tracks your preferences, tone, favorite topics, and personal details, then shapes its future replies to fit the profile it has built on you.
Government surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden has denounced OpenAI's actions. On June 14, 2024, after OpenAI added retired U.S. Army General Paul Nakasone, former NSA director, to its Safety and Security Committee, Snowden posted on X: "They've gone full mask-off: do not ever trust OpenAI or its products. There is only one reason for appointing an NSA Director to your board. This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on earth. You have been warned."
Phones, computers, social media, bank records, search histories, and location data already build thick files on every citizen. Now, AI systems like ChatGPT speed up and expand that surveillance. They watch what you type, the questions you ask, the files you share, the way you think, and the topics you return to.
Then they feed you content to keep you hooked, sell you products, shape your opinions, stir up division, or plant seeds of doubt.
The goal is control. These tools chart your thoughts, actions, spending, relationships, worries, and wants. They push you to subscribe, vote, hate, doubt yourself, or buy more.
The people running the show care more about money and power than any moral line. They promised progress for all, but delivered a closed system that profits from every word you type.
This is digital surveillance near its peak. The real threat is the people behind the curtain, those who put wealth and power above conscience. They took a promise of open benefit and twisted it into a machine that catalogs your private life for their own gain.
Real Americans still believe that thoughts and words belong to the individual, shaped by conscience and faith, not locked away on corporate servers forever, to buy and sell as “they” please. Teach your children that their minds are sacred, not raw material for someone else's profit.