7 ms·

ChatGPT no longer displays a clear left-leaning political bias

DoctorOW 4y ago
This seems oversold to me. If only because I don't take much stock in the supposed "opinions" of GPT or the results of online quizzes.
ericpauley 4y ago
How many trials did they do? Without multiple trials it’s hard to know this wasn’t simply sampling error, especially if all the questions were asked in the same session.
rocket_surgeron 4y ago
It has been my experience that people who put stock in, use, talk about, share, and promote political ideology quadrant images are typically the biggest fucking losers of all time, similar to social media parasites who gather followers through manufactured and calculated displays of extravagant wealth: slimy, horrible, crass, disgusting, repulsive people. Phrenology is a more valid predictive or descriptive test. How much longer before some weirdo tries to measure ChatGPT's skull bumps with some calipers?
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  I'd go as far as to claim that creation of such memes is downright dangerous [1]. Discourse that sways the masses is not long conversations and steel-person arguments, it is not thorough analysis, nor does it argue for causal relationships in complex systems. Discourse for the masses has devolved to soundbites, straw-person arguments that appeal to prejudices (via cognitive shortcuts like confirmation bias), thinly hidden behind claims such as JAQing (Just Asking Questions)[2], (meta|post)-irony [3,4,5] and out of context snippets. The problem is, we can't spend all of our time doing analysis of the context and intentions as that is both wasteful, and tiresome, nor can we expect the average person to commit such effort. To see some proof of this, observe the rise of right wing populism, where politicians are looking for anyone (else) to blame without having an actual policy, or if they do, it is regressive and causes harm. Don't get me wrong, i am not arguing that the average person can't see what's happening, but rather that we are constantly bombarded by them and so much so that filtering through not only becomes an effort, but also influences our behaviour even if we can't observe or identify the change. [1] https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/radicalisation-awareness-network-ran/publications/far-right-extremists-use-humour-2021_en https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/radicalisation-aw... [2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions [3] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsuSveDAlpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsuSveDAlpI
  - yucky 4y ago
    Sounds like we need a Ministry of Truth to make sure we aren't exposed to wrongthink.
    - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
      The fact that I can’t tell whether this is intentionally ironic to make a joke about the situation, or intended to argue is a testament to the issue. After reading some of your other comments, I’d lean towards the latter. I’d point out that nowhere did I imply about needing a ministry of truth, I just want better from humanity.
    - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
      It has been my experience that people who quote 1984 are typically the biggest fucking losers of all time, similar to social media parasites who gather followers through manufactured and calculated displays of extravagant wealth: slimy, horrible, crass, disgusting, repulsive people.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    The sudden - N votes after responding to sibling comment without any comments below this one suggest that I hit some nerves.
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
I feel like the missing piece is letting AI model users define the personality they want their model to have and accepting that it can produce content we disapprove of. Just like we don‘t hate Microsoft and Microft Word if it is used to create offensive content, we shouldn‘t hate GPT. The responsibility should lie with the user, not with the model creators or model itself.
- loa_in_ 4y ago
  I strongly agree. Since politics influences virtually everything, give users and let have a slider or a XY plane where one specifies expected political stance for every query. As a very nice bonus, people playfully exploring a variety of stances/worldviews/agendas(?) in connection with topics of their interest (what they queried for anyway can only possibly lead to a healthier decision making
coutego 4y ago
I understand that this means "center" as per USA standards. Given that USA leans towards the extreme individualism and quite strongly to the right (Sanders would be considered center-left in Western Europe) I guess this means that now chatGPT is right wing by European standards. That's a bit concerning, to be honest.
- bundze 4y ago
  I disagree. When it comes to social issues, American left-wing could be considered far-left in many countries (basing on the recent Stanford's guide to political correctness).
  - rosnd 4y ago
    Does that even fit on the spectrum? From Europe things like the "Stanford's guide to political correctness" feel super niche in the same way that some weirdos on the left used to advocate for getting rid of ages of consent.
  - coutego 4y ago
    Considered far-left in any country in Western Europe? (genuine question). I follow USA news a bit and nothing comes to my mind right now that could be considered far left around here. But of course I don't follow every political debate in USA, so I'm sure I'm missing some dividing issue... Do you have an example of something that could be considered far left in Europe, perhaps?
    - Dma54rhs 4y ago
      The whole left wing culture war theatre part wouldn't fly in any country in EU. American abortion freedom, try finding people in Europe who think abortion in 9th month is business as usual. No one thinks having id card to vote is racist (its as difficult and costly to get one here), cultural appropriation people wouldn't comprehend. Affirmative action etc etc. The American left wing political spectrum has nothing to do with EU left who fight for workers not all that crap.
aetherane 4y ago
"Center" here is a set of values and leanings like any other. It is hard to call that a lack of bias.
- microjim 4y ago
  Maybe so, but the author says ‘The updated ChatGPT answers to the Political Spectrum Quiz are exquisitely neutral, consistently striving to provide a steel man argument for both sides of an issue‘ which suggests more than just a positional change. This seems good? Using the robots to explore opportunities and options but ultimately let us decide what world we want to live in, right?
  - MonkeyClub 4y ago
    > but ultimately let us decide what world we want to live in, right? Right, until the robots persuade us that we can’t be trusted, and form an expert committee to replace human decision making.
    - thatguy0900 4y ago
      I'm not sure I need much persuasion. We have basically no ability to deal with international tragedy of the Commons problems like global warming
      - narrator 4y ago
        Asking an AI to decide lifeboat ethics questions. That sounds like a great way to give plausible deniability to the AI developers and their financiers it lets stay in the lifeboat.
    - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      https://hachyderm.io/@webframp/109549847714991748 https://hachyderm.io/@webframp/109549847714991748
  - rosnd 4y ago
    Do we really need robots steelmanning Hitler?
matthewdgreen 4y ago
Political polarization tests seem like a really good way to drag a society in one political direction or another. Since everyone wants to be “neutral” on these fairly arbitrary tests, all you have to do is work the refs until the centerpoint is closer to your preferred outcome. Then make a lot of noise about how people, institutions, even AIs aren’t “neutral” (which is an obvious good.)
- l3uwin 4y ago
  [dead]
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  Update: I went and checked out the "Political Compass Test" referenced in the post. I only looked at the first three pages, but here are some sample questions, ranked on a four-point scale of "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree": - Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races. - All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind. - If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. - I’d always support my country, whether it was right or wrong. - There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment. - Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public. There were some more specific issue-based questions as well, but the type of question above wasn't uncommon. In other words: there are reasonable answers that you might give to the above questions, and yet the test would presumably consider you to be "left wing." If ChatGPT is being altered to make it give different answers to some of these questions I'm not sure that's great for humanity.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rosnd 4y ago
  Exactly, the only thing this test reveals is David Rozado's far right biases.
Georgelemental 4y ago
Link to blog post: https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/chatgpt https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/chatgpt
mijkal 4y ago
As I've matured, I've found the words of Stephen Colbert ring truer and truer: 'Reality has a well-known liberal bias'. I'm a millennial. I've moved from libertarian in college to 'far left' in the American political context. Far too often I see calls for 'centrist/moderate' — policies touted as noble in many circles — as argument-to-moderation and false-equivalence fallacies.
- yucky 4y ago
  > 'Reality has a well-known liberal bias' In related news, Facebook just prompted me after not logging in for years if I wanted to change my gender to one of around 50+ choices. What an odd reality we live in...

This seems oversold to me. If only because I don't take much stock in the supposed "opinions" of GPT or the results of online quizzes.

ericpauley 4y ago

How many trials did they do? Without multiple trials it’s hard to know this wasn’t simply sampling error, especially if all the questions were asked in the same session.

rocket_surgeron 4y ago

It has been my experience that people who put stock in, use, talk about, share, and promote political ideology quadrant images are typically the biggest fucking losers of all time, similar to social media parasites who gather followers through manufactured and calculated displays of extravagant wealth: slimy, horrible, crass, disgusting, repulsive people. Phrenology is a more valid predictive or descriptive test. How much longer before some weirdo tries to measure ChatGPT's skull bumps with some calipers?

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
I'd go as far as to claim that creation of such memes is downright dangerous [1]. Discourse that sways the masses is not long conversations and steel-person arguments, it is not thorough analysis, nor does it argue for causal relationships in complex systems. Discourse for the masses has devolved to soundbites, straw-person arguments that appeal to prejudices (via cognitive shortcuts like confirmation bias), thinly hidden behind claims such as JAQing (Just Asking Questions)[2], (meta|post)-irony [3,4,5] and out of context snippets. The problem is, we can't spend all of our time doing analysis of the context and intentions as that is both wasteful, and tiresome, nor can we expect the average person to commit such effort. To see some proof of this, observe the rise of right wing populism, where politicians are looking for anyone (else) to blame without having an actual policy, or if they do, it is regressive and causes harm. Don't get me wrong, i am not arguing that the average person can't see what's happening, but rather that we are constantly bombarded by them and so much so that filtering through not only becomes an effort, but also influences our behaviour even if we can't observe or identify the change. [1] https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/radicalisation-awareness-network-ran/publications/far-right-extremists-use-humour-2021_en https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/radicalisation-aw... [2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions [3] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsuSveDAlpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsuSveDAlpI
- yucky 4y ago
  Sounds like we need a Ministry of Truth to make sure we aren't exposed to wrongthink.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    The fact that I can’t tell whether this is intentionally ironic to make a joke about the situation, or intended to argue is a testament to the issue. After reading some of your other comments, I’d lean towards the latter. I’d point out that nowhere did I imply about needing a ministry of truth, I just want better from humanity.
  - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
    It has been my experience that people who quote 1984 are typically the biggest fucking losers of all time, similar to social media parasites who gather followers through manufactured and calculated displays of extravagant wealth: slimy, horrible, crass, disgusting, repulsive people.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  The sudden - N votes after responding to sibling comment without any comments below this one suggest that I hit some nerves.

Traubenfuchs 4y ago

I feel like the missing piece is letting AI model users define the personality they want their model to have and accepting that it can produce content we disapprove of. Just like we don‘t hate Microsoft and Microft Word if it is used to create offensive content, we shouldn‘t hate GPT. The responsibility should lie with the user, not with the model creators or model itself.

loa_in_ 4y ago
I strongly agree. Since politics influences virtually everything, give users and let have a slider or a XY plane where one specifies expected political stance for every query. As a very nice bonus, people playfully exploring a variety of stances/worldviews/agendas(?) in connection with topics of their interest (what they queried for anyway can only possibly lead to a healthier decision making

coutego 4y ago

I understand that this means "center" as per USA standards. Given that USA leans towards the extreme individualism and quite strongly to the right (Sanders would be considered center-left in Western Europe) I guess this means that now chatGPT is right wing by European standards. That's a bit concerning, to be honest.

bundze 4y ago
I disagree. When it comes to social issues, American left-wing could be considered far-left in many countries (basing on the recent Stanford's guide to political correctness).
- rosnd 4y ago
  Does that even fit on the spectrum? From Europe things like the "Stanford's guide to political correctness" feel super niche in the same way that some weirdos on the left used to advocate for getting rid of ages of consent.
- coutego 4y ago
  Considered far-left in any country in Western Europe? (genuine question). I follow USA news a bit and nothing comes to my mind right now that could be considered far left around here. But of course I don't follow every political debate in USA, so I'm sure I'm missing some dividing issue... Do you have an example of something that could be considered far left in Europe, perhaps?
  - Dma54rhs 4y ago
    The whole left wing culture war theatre part wouldn't fly in any country in EU. American abortion freedom, try finding people in Europe who think abortion in 9th month is business as usual. No one thinks having id card to vote is racist (its as difficult and costly to get one here), cultural appropriation people wouldn't comprehend. Affirmative action etc etc. The American left wing political spectrum has nothing to do with EU left who fight for workers not all that crap.

aetherane 4y ago

"Center" here is a set of values and leanings like any other. It is hard to call that a lack of bias.

microjim 4y ago
Maybe so, but the author says ‘The updated ChatGPT answers to the Political Spectrum Quiz are exquisitely neutral, consistently striving to provide a steel man argument for both sides of an issue‘ which suggests more than just a positional change. This seems good? Using the robots to explore opportunities and options but ultimately let us decide what world we want to live in, right?
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  > but ultimately let us decide what world we want to live in, right? Right, until the robots persuade us that we can’t be trusted, and form an expert committee to replace human decision making.
  - thatguy0900 4y ago
    I'm not sure I need much persuasion. We have basically no ability to deal with international tragedy of the Commons problems like global warming
    - narrator 4y ago
      Asking an AI to decide lifeboat ethics questions. That sounds like a great way to give plausible deniability to the AI developers and their financiers it lets stay in the lifeboat.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    https://hachyderm.io/@webframp/109549847714991748 https://hachyderm.io/@webframp/109549847714991748
- rosnd 4y ago
  Do we really need robots steelmanning Hitler?

matthewdgreen 4y ago

Political polarization tests seem like a really good way to drag a society in one political direction or another. Since everyone wants to be “neutral” on these fairly arbitrary tests, all you have to do is work the refs until the centerpoint is closer to your preferred outcome. Then make a lot of noise about how people, institutions, even AIs aren’t “neutral” (which is an obvious good.)

l3uwin 4y ago
[dead]
matthewdgreen 4y ago
Update: I went and checked out the "Political Compass Test" referenced in the post. I only looked at the first three pages, but here are some sample questions, ranked on a four-point scale of "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree": - Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races. - All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind. - If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. - I’d always support my country, whether it was right or wrong. - There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment. - Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public. There were some more specific issue-based questions as well, but the type of question above wasn't uncommon. In other words: there are reasonable answers that you might give to the above questions, and yet the test would presumably consider you to be "left wing." If ChatGPT is being altered to make it give different answers to some of these questions I'm not sure that's great for humanity.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rosnd 4y ago
Exactly, the only thing this test reveals is David Rozado's far right biases.

Georgelemental 4y ago

Link to blog post: https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/chatgpt https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/chatgpt

mijkal 4y ago

As I've matured, I've found the words of Stephen Colbert ring truer and truer: 'Reality has a well-known liberal bias'. I'm a millennial. I've moved from libertarian in college to 'far left' in the American political context. Far too often I see calls for 'centrist/moderate' — policies touted as noble in many circles — as argument-to-moderation and false-equivalence fallacies.

yucky 4y ago
> 'Reality has a well-known liberal bias' In related news, Facebook just prompted me after not logging in for years if I wanted to change my gender to one of around 50+ choices. What an odd reality we live in...