Professor Loses Years Of ChatGPT Research Data

Marcel Bucher, a plant-sciences professor at the University of Cologne, reports in Nature that in August he disabled ChatGPT’s 'data consent' setting and permanently lost two years of chats and project folders. He says reinstalling, contacting OpenAI support and human agents failed to recover files. The episode—and the social-media mockery it generated—raises concerns about vendor accountability, institutional AI pressure, and data governance.