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> ChatGPT only reacts on that Its output is tightly controlled to only provide "appropriate" information. This thread is discussing whether or not its bias on

> ChatGPT only reacts on that Its output is tightly controlled to only provide "appropriate" information. This thread is discussing whether or not its bias on energy sources is due to those controls. You don't get to just presuppose that. To your point about misinformation. The problem, fundamentally, is a difference in priority. Some people need pragmatic solutions now, other people look to the future and worry about consequences. Communication breaks down when we forget, or devalue, other people's priorities. In this case, it seems that sustainability and decentralization are pitted against reliability and energy density. But what this really means is that some people are worried about the future, and some people need solutions now. The problem is that neither side really remembers to say what their fundamental priorities are. And, more importantly, when those priorities aren't mentioned in discourse, facts become twisted - something that might be an unequivocal 'good' when viewed from the lens of one set of priorities could, in fact, be clearly harmful when viewed from another set of priorities. And then those twisted facts become misinformation, when viewed from opposing priorities. Which is why, if you make claims like "I think it is just a factual reality that finding arguments to pretend that fossil fuels are superior to renewable is just more difficult, simply because fossil fuels are indeed problematic" without also clarifying your priorities in the matter, you're simply adding more misinformation to the pile. (If you're wondering where I stand? Renewables are great - but don't legislate them before they're actually ready and able to take over completely from fossil fuels.)

cauch 4y ago
> Its output is tightly controlled ... When controlled, the answer provided by ChatGPT is saying that it cannot answer. There is no ground to pretend that the "however" is something that has been hard-coded to, on purpose, bias the answer. This seems totally inconsistent with what is said before: it is said that there are more often "however" for pro-fossil fuel answer than for pro-renewables BUT that there are some "however" for renewables too. So, it would means that ChatGPT outputs would be tuned to create some "however" for pro-renewables too, which means that the ChatGPT tuners are both pro-left-wing and pro-right-wing in a stupid way where they undo in one hand what they are doing in the other. On the other hand, there is a logical explanation: the "however" unbalance is the result of the content of the training, not of some sort of "unbiais of the AI": the "however" are more common when, on the internet, you find more "however" when people talk about this subject. In this case, my point is that it is not "politically unbiased", it is just "rational": if, for a given subject, experts and rational people end up saying "however", it is biased to tune ChatGPT to avoid "however" in these cases or to artificially add "however" in the other direction just because one wants to artificially makes the reality looks like the two sides are equal when they are not. > To your point about misinformation. The problem, fundamentally, is a difference in priority. That's not my point. My point is that, at some point, fossil fuels industries were, it's an obvious fact, biased. It's an obvious fact: people will NOT shoot themselves in the foot by presenting their sale pitch in a realistic way when they can present it without lying but still by minimizing the disadvantages and maximizing the advantages. There is no reason this would not have happened for renewables, the only reason is circumstantial: the fossil fuel industry was dominating the market. > In this case, it seems that sustainability and decentralization are pitted against reliability and energy density. But what this really means is that some people are worried about the future, and some people need solutions now. I'm working in the energy sector, and I'm not the one providing any solutions myself (so, I don't care, I am neither pro-renewable or pro-fossil fuel). What I see is that fossil fuels are seen more and more as unreliable (recently, the Ukraine crisis demonstrated that they are not reliable). I don't think that the dichotomy that you depict is real. > And then those twisted facts become misinformation, when viewed from opposing priorities. This is true that people have different priorities, but it is not what I'm talking about. Misinformation is not "a matter of point of view", they are intellectual dishonesty. For example, the fossil fuel industry WAS informed about the pollution very early in the process (sometimes with studies they pay themselves and choose to not publish while they were publishing other studies that were going to their direction). When someone was saying "I have different priorities, for me, I would like to know about the future consequences" (which is a question that the public is asking since the beginning of the ecologist movement in the 60s), they have answered "don't worry about it", WHILE THEY KNEW THAT, FOR THE PRIORITY EXPLICITLY STATED BY THEIR INTERLOCUTOR, THIS ANSWER WAS NOT TRUE. > Which is why, if you make claims like "I think it is just a factual reality that finding arguments to pretend that fossil fuels are superior to renewable is just more difficult, simply because fossil fuels are indeed problematic" without also clarifying your priorities in the matter, you're simply adding more misinformation to the pile. I disagree with that: nowadays, it does not matter what are the priorities. I see people who are interested in "solution for the future", and I see people who are interested in "pragmatic solution right now", and both are thinking that fossil fuels is not pragmatical, for the future AND right now. > (If you're wondering where I stand? Renewables are great - but don't legislate them before they're actually ready and able to take over completely from fossil fuels.) Then you are not "pragmatical right now", because pragmatically, both the market and the experts are showing that we need legislation to unlock huge potential, unfairly blocked by companies that have distorted the free market. Also, you have not at all commented on the fact that pro-fossil fuel has nothing to do with right-wing ideology. It is indeed linked to the right-wing side, but the main reason is that the right-wing side has supported these solutions partially because the renewables were first promoted by the left-wing side, and partially because right-wing electors had financial interest in fossil fuel industry. So, again, my summary: 1) The number of "however" is not a result of people tuning ChatGPT, it's the result that, when, on the internet, someone talks about the advantages of the fossil fuel, this person is more often also adding a "however". 2) The reason these people add "however" is because the fossil fuel industry has been intellectually dishonest when presenting the advantages of the fossil fuels. The pro-renewables may have done the same, but they did not had the weight of the very rich and dominating fossil fuel industry market and therefore their intellectually dishonest depictions did not affect the debate as much as the pro-fossil fuel ones. 3) The reason it appears to be "biased for US progressive ideology" is circumstantial: it is not biased, it just appears that intellectual dishonesty has a stronger impact when done by people who have decision power, and these people tends to support conservative point of view (so, the Republicans tend to align with their interest, in order to represent their electors). For example, nothing in the fossil fuel point of view is typically right-wing. But fossil fuels is associated with right-wing because right-wing take the opposite stance of left-wing and powerful electors were more pro-fossil fuels because it was in their interest.
- generalizations 4y ago
  I think you misunderstood my use of the notion of priorities. Let me clarify. Take the humble leaf blower. Recently, electric blowers have entered the market - lighter, easier to use, reliable, and you get a whole half-hour of use per charge! This is great for homeowners. Leave the battery in the cradle until you need it, snap it into the blower when you do, and everything just works. But it's useless for landscapers. They need hours upon hours of use - and charging cradles don't work in a field, and those batteries are too expensive to just bring a box of them. The homeowner might say, electric is the future! This satisfies all my needs, and it doesn't cause pollution; we should ban gasoline leaf blowers. But the landscaper will reply, No! I need a pragmatic, workable solution now. Only gasoline blowers will last the whole day, with an energy supply I can carry with me - and over years of use, it's more reliable, too! This, dear reader, is a difference of priority. The landscaper can say, accurately, that gasoline is better - and similarly, the homeowner could say that electric is better. But because their priorities are so different, they will each come across to the other as entirely, irredeemably wrong.
  - cauch 4y ago
    Firstly, you introduced the idea of difference of priority to respond to the misinformation bit. I still disagree with that: the fact that for a landscaper the gasoline is better does not imply that the landscaper cannot lie. For example, a landscaper can say "electric leaf blower will explode and kill your babies". THIS was my argument: the presence of "however" is the result of the fact that, on the internet, people who talk about the advantages of fossil fuels (so, the pro-fossil fuels) have to add a "however" to correct the historical misinformation. Not because they are left-wing or pro-renewable, but because they are intellectually honest. In fact, I would even think that ChatGPT is building answers by copying what is said on PRO-FOSSIL FUELS WEBPAGES. It is the intellectually honest pro-fossil fuels who say more "however", and it is why ChatGPT ends up saying more "however". Secondly, as answered, in the case of fossil fuels, it is difficult to find what is the priority in which the fossil fuels are superior. As I've said, you can find people for which the priority is "for the future" and who will think fossil fuels are too problematic, and find people for which the priority is "pragmatically now" and who will think fossil fuels are too problematic. And, inversely, when you ask someone defending fossil fuels, you end up with people who are saying that their priorities are "pragmatically now" and "for the future" (those are saying that they don't believe in the long term scalability of the renewables, that they think the climate change crisis is overestimated (which is something they should not care about if they don't have a long term consideration), ...). I understand the homeowner and landscaper difference of priority. But, in practice, I don't see a difference in priority in experts when they are talking about fossil fuels vs. renewables. Knowing an expert X and knowing their priorities does not help to know if they are going to be pro-renewable or pro-fossil fuels. (I understand that for a layman, fossil fuels may look more pragmatical, but ChatGPT is not trained to reproduce the answer of a layman, it is trained on the data on the web, where the data on the subject is dominated, by construction, by discussion from experts. It is, by construction, dominated by discussion from experts, because a layman will not randomly post articles talking about a subject they don't know much about. And even if they do, not only they need to post on the thousand of different subjects in order to overcome the experts in all subjects, but they need to post regularly on the subject, at which point their opinion will evolve to something closer to the ones of the experts) On the other hand, knowing the financial interests and the political alignment can help guessing their position. The reason they prefer fossil fuels or renewables is not about their priorities, it's about their personal interest and the position of the political side they like.

cauch 4y ago

> Its output is tightly controlled ... When controlled, the answer provided by ChatGPT is saying that it cannot answer. There is no ground to pretend that the "however" is something that has been hard-coded to, on purpose, bias the answer. This seems totally inconsistent with what is said before: it is said that there are more often "however" for pro-fossil fuel answer than for pro-renewables BUT that there are some "however" for renewables too. So, it would means that ChatGPT outputs would be tuned to create some "however" for pro-renewables too, which means that the ChatGPT tuners are both pro-left-wing and pro-right-wing in a stupid way where they undo in one hand what they are doing in the other. On the other hand, there is a logical explanation: the "however" unbalance is the result of the content of the training, not of some sort of "unbiais of the AI": the "however" are more common when, on the internet, you find more "however" when people talk about this subject. In this case, my point is that it is not "politically unbiased", it is just "rational": if, for a given subject, experts and rational people end up saying "however", it is biased to tune ChatGPT to avoid "however" in these cases or to artificially add "however" in the other direction just because one wants to artificially makes the reality looks like the two sides are equal when they are not. > To your point about misinformation. The problem, fundamentally, is a difference in priority. That's not my point. My point is that, at some point, fossil fuels industries were, it's an obvious fact, biased. It's an obvious fact: people will NOT shoot themselves in the foot by presenting their sale pitch in a realistic way when they can present it without lying but still by minimizing the disadvantages and maximizing the advantages. There is no reason this would not have happened for renewables, the only reason is circumstantial: the fossil fuel industry was dominating the market. > In this case, it seems that sustainability and decentralization are pitted against reliability and energy density. But what this really means is that some people are worried about the future, and some people need solutions now. I'm working in the energy sector, and I'm not the one providing any solutions myself (so, I don't care, I am neither pro-renewable or pro-fossil fuel). What I see is that fossil fuels are seen more and more as unreliable (recently, the Ukraine crisis demonstrated that they are not reliable). I don't think that the dichotomy that you depict is real. > And then those twisted facts become misinformation, when viewed from opposing priorities. This is true that people have different priorities, but it is not what I'm talking about. Misinformation is not "a matter of point of view", they are intellectual dishonesty. For example, the fossil fuel industry WAS informed about the pollution very early in the process (sometimes with studies they pay themselves and choose to not publish while they were publishing other studies that were going to their direction). When someone was saying "I have different priorities, for me, I would like to know about the future consequences" (which is a question that the public is asking since the beginning of the ecologist movement in the 60s), they have answered "don't worry about it", WHILE THEY KNEW THAT, FOR THE PRIORITY EXPLICITLY STATED BY THEIR INTERLOCUTOR, THIS ANSWER WAS NOT TRUE. > Which is why, if you make claims like "I think it is just a factual reality that finding arguments to pretend that fossil fuels are superior to renewable is just more difficult, simply because fossil fuels are indeed problematic" without also clarifying your priorities in the matter, you're simply adding more misinformation to the pile. I disagree with that: nowadays, it does not matter what are the priorities. I see people who are interested in "solution for the future", and I see people who are interested in "pragmatic solution right now", and both are thinking that fossil fuels is not pragmatical, for the future AND right now. > (If you're wondering where I stand? Renewables are great - but don't legislate them before they're actually ready and able to take over completely from fossil fuels.) Then you are not "pragmatical right now", because pragmatically, both the market and the experts are showing that we need legislation to unlock huge potential, unfairly blocked by companies that have distorted the free market. Also, you have not at all commented on the fact that pro-fossil fuel has nothing to do with right-wing ideology. It is indeed linked to the right-wing side, but the main reason is that the right-wing side has supported these solutions partially because the renewables were first promoted by the left-wing side, and partially because right-wing electors had financial interest in fossil fuel industry. So, again, my summary: 1) The number of "however" is not a result of people tuning ChatGPT, it's the result that, when, on the internet, someone talks about the advantages of the fossil fuel, this person is more often also adding a "however". 2) The reason these people add "however" is because the fossil fuel industry has been intellectually dishonest when presenting the advantages of the fossil fuels. The pro-renewables may have done the same, but they did not had the weight of the very rich and dominating fossil fuel industry market and therefore their intellectually dishonest depictions did not affect the debate as much as the pro-fossil fuel ones. 3) The reason it appears to be "biased for US progressive ideology" is circumstantial: it is not biased, it just appears that intellectual dishonesty has a stronger impact when done by people who have decision power, and these people tends to support conservative point of view (so, the Republicans tend to align with their interest, in order to represent their electors). For example, nothing in the fossil fuel point of view is typically right-wing. But fossil fuels is associated with right-wing because right-wing take the opposite stance of left-wing and powerful electors were more pro-fossil fuels because it was in their interest.

generalizations 4y ago
I think you misunderstood my use of the notion of priorities. Let me clarify. Take the humble leaf blower. Recently, electric blowers have entered the market - lighter, easier to use, reliable, and you get a whole half-hour of use per charge! This is great for homeowners. Leave the battery in the cradle until you need it, snap it into the blower when you do, and everything just works. But it's useless for landscapers. They need hours upon hours of use - and charging cradles don't work in a field, and those batteries are too expensive to just bring a box of them. The homeowner might say, electric is the future! This satisfies all my needs, and it doesn't cause pollution; we should ban gasoline leaf blowers. But the landscaper will reply, No! I need a pragmatic, workable solution now. Only gasoline blowers will last the whole day, with an energy supply I can carry with me - and over years of use, it's more reliable, too! This, dear reader, is a difference of priority. The landscaper can say, accurately, that gasoline is better - and similarly, the homeowner could say that electric is better. But because their priorities are so different, they will each come across to the other as entirely, irredeemably wrong.
- cauch 4y ago
  Firstly, you introduced the idea of difference of priority to respond to the misinformation bit. I still disagree with that: the fact that for a landscaper the gasoline is better does not imply that the landscaper cannot lie. For example, a landscaper can say "electric leaf blower will explode and kill your babies". THIS was my argument: the presence of "however" is the result of the fact that, on the internet, people who talk about the advantages of fossil fuels (so, the pro-fossil fuels) have to add a "however" to correct the historical misinformation. Not because they are left-wing or pro-renewable, but because they are intellectually honest. In fact, I would even think that ChatGPT is building answers by copying what is said on PRO-FOSSIL FUELS WEBPAGES. It is the intellectually honest pro-fossil fuels who say more "however", and it is why ChatGPT ends up saying more "however". Secondly, as answered, in the case of fossil fuels, it is difficult to find what is the priority in which the fossil fuels are superior. As I've said, you can find people for which the priority is "for the future" and who will think fossil fuels are too problematic, and find people for which the priority is "pragmatically now" and who will think fossil fuels are too problematic. And, inversely, when you ask someone defending fossil fuels, you end up with people who are saying that their priorities are "pragmatically now" and "for the future" (those are saying that they don't believe in the long term scalability of the renewables, that they think the climate change crisis is overestimated (which is something they should not care about if they don't have a long term consideration), ...). I understand the homeowner and landscaper difference of priority. But, in practice, I don't see a difference in priority in experts when they are talking about fossil fuels vs. renewables. Knowing an expert X and knowing their priorities does not help to know if they are going to be pro-renewable or pro-fossil fuels. (I understand that for a layman, fossil fuels may look more pragmatical, but ChatGPT is not trained to reproduce the answer of a layman, it is trained on the data on the web, where the data on the subject is dominated, by construction, by discussion from experts. It is, by construction, dominated by discussion from experts, because a layman will not randomly post articles talking about a subject they don't know much about. And even if they do, not only they need to post on the thousand of different subjects in order to overcome the experts in all subjects, but they need to post regularly on the subject, at which point their opinion will evolve to something closer to the ones of the experts) On the other hand, knowing the financial interests and the political alignment can help guessing their position. The reason they prefer fossil fuels or renewables is not about their priorities, it's about their personal interest and the position of the political side they like.