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I still think this is a weird hill to die on. The article you linked specifically focuses on ChatGPT’s ability to generate hateful content. It’s hard not to r

I still think this is a weird hill to die on. The article you linked specifically focuses on ChatGPT’s ability to generate hateful content. It’s hard not to read what you’re expressing as “I won’t pay for it until it’s adequately able to generate hateful content”. There are a number of other domains where you might find it useful.

todd3834 4y ago
I don’t think wanting apolitical information is a weird hill to die on. I didn’t read the last commenters link but maybe it just didn’t give the best examples. If you search, you will definitely find examples where it will refuse to answer a question that is right leaning but happily respond with a left leaning answer. To me that doesn’t “feel” like it was learned from training data but it feels more like a bias was programmed into the interface. Likely with good intentions but it’s catching edge cases that even the authors probably didn’t intend. I do believe it will get better. I don’t think ChatGPT is a political secret weapon of the left. With Covid, the last US election, civil unrest, there is a lot of fear about putting out false or negatively insightful information. It’s a tough problem to solve. I don’t think ChatGPT should be responsible for solving it but they should try to make it feel less biased on the overly aggressive parts.
- neilyio 4y ago
  Well said, I appreciate your input. I haven’t come across areas where ChatGPT refuses a right-leaning answer about a nuanced topic. I see far more instances from posters who are unhappy that ChatGPT won’t say something negative about women/POC/LGBT people, but will about men/white/straight, etc. Personally, I don’t mind that ChatGPT is protective of systematically oppressed groups. I have yet to see an example where it convincingly leans left on any sort of nuanced argument. If you or anyone else would be able to post an example, I think it would be an interesting addition to the discussion!
slowmovintarget 4y ago
You are mischaracterizing the article. The article analyzes the encoded bias of ChatGPT. The system allows you to, for example, make fun of conservatives, but not liberals. It allows you to write negative stories about Republicans, but not Democrats. The people that created the system have also encoded who is worse off than whom based on what someone looks like. That seems like a bad idea to me. Using it to write code... that's probably OK. Using it to express ideas? That seems problematic when the system is designed to favor a particular ideology. It is not that the system should output hateful things. It is that it specifically endorses some hateful things as being just fine. If you extend that into untested biases, what the system favors, you're left with a generator that constantly applies an ideology in favor of some things and against others, regardless of the reason for talking about those things. "There are no unhappy people in Oceania..." "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
- entelechy0 4y ago
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- neilyio 4y ago
  I re-read the article. I agree I wasn’t capturing the full picture in my initial comment. But I stand by my original sentiment. It would be wonderful to be proven wrong, but I have a feeling that we’re unlikely to see a perfect text generation system with no bias anytime soon. What perfect system exists in the world? You seem to specifically have an issue with the Democrat vs. Republican leaning demonstrated in the article you linked. If the small bias that exists disqualifies your support for this wildly useful tool, then I suppose there’s not much that can change that. We’re left to hope that another model pops up soon whose biases are more favourable to you. Other than the D/R bias, other biases seemed to correlate pretty well with protecting oppressed groups. Once again, under the premise that bias will always exist, I personally think that OpenAI has done a pretty good job at channeling that bias towards protecting groups that tend to be the subject of most hateful content. But then, I’m also coming from a position of being supportive of good moderation. That’s why I like forums like Hacker News, and I suppose why we’re having this conversation at all. If I only saw utility in raw, unbiased, unfiltered text, I’d probably go read elsewhere.
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    Until OpenAI deliberately filtered the output, ChatGPT was less biased. The creators put their political finger on the scale.

todd3834 4y ago

I don’t think wanting apolitical information is a weird hill to die on. I didn’t read the last commenters link but maybe it just didn’t give the best examples. If you search, you will definitely find examples where it will refuse to answer a question that is right leaning but happily respond with a left leaning answer. To me that doesn’t “feel” like it was learned from training data but it feels more like a bias was programmed into the interface. Likely with good intentions but it’s catching edge cases that even the authors probably didn’t intend. I do believe it will get better. I don’t think ChatGPT is a political secret weapon of the left. With Covid, the last US election, civil unrest, there is a lot of fear about putting out false or negatively insightful information. It’s a tough problem to solve. I don’t think ChatGPT should be responsible for solving it but they should try to make it feel less biased on the overly aggressive parts.

neilyio 4y ago
Well said, I appreciate your input. I haven’t come across areas where ChatGPT refuses a right-leaning answer about a nuanced topic. I see far more instances from posters who are unhappy that ChatGPT won’t say something negative about women/POC/LGBT people, but will about men/white/straight, etc. Personally, I don’t mind that ChatGPT is protective of systematically oppressed groups. I have yet to see an example where it convincingly leans left on any sort of nuanced argument. If you or anyone else would be able to post an example, I think it would be an interesting addition to the discussion!

slowmovintarget 4y ago

You are mischaracterizing the article. The article analyzes the encoded bias of ChatGPT. The system allows you to, for example, make fun of conservatives, but not liberals. It allows you to write negative stories about Republicans, but not Democrats. The people that created the system have also encoded who is worse off than whom based on what someone looks like. That seems like a bad idea to me. Using it to write code... that's probably OK. Using it to express ideas? That seems problematic when the system is designed to favor a particular ideology. It is not that the system should output hateful things. It is that it specifically endorses some hateful things as being just fine. If you extend that into untested biases, what the system favors, you're left with a generator that constantly applies an ideology in favor of some things and against others, regardless of the reason for talking about those things. "There are no unhappy people in Oceania..." "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

entelechy0 4y ago
[dead]
neilyio 4y ago
I re-read the article. I agree I wasn’t capturing the full picture in my initial comment. But I stand by my original sentiment. It would be wonderful to be proven wrong, but I have a feeling that we’re unlikely to see a perfect text generation system with no bias anytime soon. What perfect system exists in the world? You seem to specifically have an issue with the Democrat vs. Republican leaning demonstrated in the article you linked. If the small bias that exists disqualifies your support for this wildly useful tool, then I suppose there’s not much that can change that. We’re left to hope that another model pops up soon whose biases are more favourable to you. Other than the D/R bias, other biases seemed to correlate pretty well with protecting oppressed groups. Once again, under the premise that bias will always exist, I personally think that OpenAI has done a pretty good job at channeling that bias towards protecting groups that tend to be the subject of most hateful content. But then, I’m also coming from a position of being supportive of good moderation. That’s why I like forums like Hacker News, and I suppose why we’re having this conversation at all. If I only saw utility in raw, unbiased, unfiltered text, I’d probably go read elsewhere.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Until OpenAI deliberately filtered the output, ChatGPT was less biased. The creators put their political finger on the scale.