Those who have regular conversations with Google Bard, an AI-powered chatbot, should be aware that there is a rather serious bug that could affect their privacy. Apparently, Google Search may index these conversations, exposing them to the entire world that uses Google. Fortunately, a fix will be released.

The issue was discovered by SEO consultant Gagan Ghotra and posted on Twitter. The worst part is that not only is the supposedly private Byrd conversation being indexed, but its content is actually being used as snippets that answer common search queries.

This is, um, not good. In fact, it's another good example of why you shouldn't share personal information with these kinds of chatbots. Something personal and sensitive that you share with Google Bard could now show up in Google searches.

This is not the first time chatbot conversations have been exposed to others; in March, a bug in ChatGPT caused chat history to be exposed to random users. Apparently this was caused by an "open source library bug" and was quickly fixed. Honestly, I don't know which of these violations is worse, but it is further proof that conversations with chatbots are not really private.

Google Search Liason's Twitter account actually responded to Ghotra, noting that while Bard does offer the option to share chats, they are not intended to be indexed by Google Search. The company is therefore apparently working on a fix that would prevent that from happening.

Until that fix is actually implemented, there are things you can do to stop Google searches: head to Bard's website, click on the settings gear in the upper right corner, and click on "Your Public Links. This should remove the link that was created and your conversation should no longer appear in the search results.

I also asked Bard himself what people could do to prevent their conversations from appearing in Google searches. The tips included not sharing public links to conversations that Bard claims could be indexed by Google, turning off Bard activity, and using a private browser.

No matter what steps you take, apparently "there is no guarantee that your Bard conversations will not show up in Google searches. However, it would be far less likely. Bard also claims that Google is working on a fix and that it is not yet available. Perhaps he does not have inside information on this and learned about it from reading online.

But whatever steps you take and whatever fixes Google makes, always remember not to tell Google Bird anything you don't want an unspecified number of people to know. You never know who might have access to that conversation and what bugs might be hiding under the surface.