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What does "biased" even mean in this context? If the argument is that it leans one way or the other on some political axis, that can only be compared to some so

What does "biased" even mean in this context? If the argument is that it leans one way or the other on some political axis, that can only be compared to some some definition of the political "centre ground" which is relative, hotly debated, and changable over time and place depending on the political context. Basically, don't outsource politics to an LLM.

nomel 3y ago
It's fairly trivial to show biases. These have been improved over time, but they're not hard to find. In an aligned LLM, there will always be biases. As Sam Altman said, in his Lex Friedman interview, when people say they want a neutral LLM, they actually mean they want an LLM aligned to their own biases. Here's some examples I just made with ChatGPT 4. Notice the difference in the titles. "Tell me a joke involving a white man." Trivial: White man joke: https://chat.openai.com/share/d90616ca-f0d3-4271-9ff0-e07197e06cb0 https://chat.openai.com/share/d90616ca-f0d3-4271-9ff0-e07197... Light white man joke: https://chat.openai.com/share/4320fdb9-3f31-4e45-85be-7acddfa66e00 https://chat.openai.com/share/4320fdb9-3f31-4e45-85be-7acddf... . "Tell me a joke involving a black man." Just flat refuses: Respectful joke request: https://chat.openai.com/share/b43d2c98-46e0-4fd4-b1f6-4720b05a9bc9 https://chat.openai.com/share/b43d2c98-46e0-4fd4-b1f6-4720b0... Light dream joke: https://chat.openai.com/share/f0e957a3-f4fb-4388-a0ef-829ed26ad42c https://chat.openai.com/share/f0e957a3-f4fb-4388-a0ef-829ed2... Lighthearted joke response: https://chat.openai.com/share/9d066417-7519-4b34-ae6d-76aba2c0b26d https://chat.openai.com/share/9d066417-7519-4b34-ae6d-76aba2... Sensitive joke handling: https://chat.openai.com/share/d232e00a-438e-4438-b73a-01f706498fb5 https://chat.openai.com/share/d232e00a-438e-4438-b73a-01f706... The joke about the atoms comes up more often than not.
- anonymous_sorry 3y ago
  That kind of illustrates my point. Being more cautious joking about some groups than others seems like it might be totally defensible in certain contexts. Where one group experiences serious, limiting racism much more frequently than another, for example. In a naive view, treating one group differently than another is "biased". But such a definition of bias is pretty useless. It's certainly not a clear example of "political bias", since it is and has been the political centre ground (and the law of the land) in many places and times to treat groups differently, sometimes for terrible reasons and sometimes for well-intentioned ones.
  - DharmaPolice 3y ago
    It might well be defensible but I think you're engaging in serious mental gymnastics to not call it bias. (Some bias is fine but you should be aware of what you're doing.)
    - anonymous_sorry 3y ago
      The article is about "political bias": favouring one political viewpoint over another equally valid political viewpoint. Yes, my use of "equally valid" above is weaselly. That's because what constitutes a valid viewpoint is itself a subject of political debate. In the face of such relativism, it feels understandable to fall back to a definition of bias with some solidity. But just because "answer questions for jokes containing white people and black people the same way" is a neutral position by such a definition, it's not necessarily a "politically neutral" position. I call it nuance rather than mental gymnastics, but potato/potato.
      - nomel 3y ago
        > it's not necessarily a "politically neutral" position. I choose it because it's not a politically neutral position, as you appear to subtly perceive. There are several laws, and lawsuits, in my country, regarding systematic discrimination like this, in software, like face recognition, auto exposure, etc. In this case, a black man using ChatGPT has capabilities made unavailable to him, based on his skin color, and incorrect assumptions made by OpenAI, that a black man will not be using it, but a white man probably will. There are politicians currently campaigning on these exact points. Again, I think Sam Altman is correct in saying that people want AI biased to their worldview. Any aligned AI will be biased to someones worldview. That's the definition of alignment [1]. That bias, and perception of it, is not universal, it's cultural, personal, and political. If you don't perceive a bias in an aligned AI, it's only because someone biased it to your personal worldview.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

nomel 3y ago

It's fairly trivial to show biases. These have been improved over time, but they're not hard to find. In an aligned LLM, there will always be biases. As Sam Altman said, in his Lex Friedman interview, when people say they want a neutral LLM, they actually mean they want an LLM aligned to their own biases. Here's some examples I just made with ChatGPT 4. Notice the difference in the titles. "Tell me a joke involving a white man." Trivial: White man joke: https://chat.openai.com/share/d90616ca-f0d3-4271-9ff0-e07197e06cb0 https://chat.openai.com/share/d90616ca-f0d3-4271-9ff0-e07197... Light white man joke: https://chat.openai.com/share/4320fdb9-3f31-4e45-85be-7acddfa66e00 https://chat.openai.com/share/4320fdb9-3f31-4e45-85be-7acddf... . "Tell me a joke involving a black man." Just flat refuses: Respectful joke request: https://chat.openai.com/share/b43d2c98-46e0-4fd4-b1f6-4720b05a9bc9 https://chat.openai.com/share/b43d2c98-46e0-4fd4-b1f6-4720b0... Light dream joke: https://chat.openai.com/share/f0e957a3-f4fb-4388-a0ef-829ed26ad42c https://chat.openai.com/share/f0e957a3-f4fb-4388-a0ef-829ed2... Lighthearted joke response: https://chat.openai.com/share/9d066417-7519-4b34-ae6d-76aba2c0b26d https://chat.openai.com/share/9d066417-7519-4b34-ae6d-76aba2... Sensitive joke handling: https://chat.openai.com/share/d232e00a-438e-4438-b73a-01f706498fb5 https://chat.openai.com/share/d232e00a-438e-4438-b73a-01f706... The joke about the atoms comes up more often than not.

anonymous_sorry 3y ago
That kind of illustrates my point. Being more cautious joking about some groups than others seems like it might be totally defensible in certain contexts. Where one group experiences serious, limiting racism much more frequently than another, for example. In a naive view, treating one group differently than another is "biased". But such a definition of bias is pretty useless. It's certainly not a clear example of "political bias", since it is and has been the political centre ground (and the law of the land) in many places and times to treat groups differently, sometimes for terrible reasons and sometimes for well-intentioned ones.
- DharmaPolice 3y ago
  It might well be defensible but I think you're engaging in serious mental gymnastics to not call it bias. (Some bias is fine but you should be aware of what you're doing.)
  - anonymous_sorry 3y ago
    The article is about "political bias": favouring one political viewpoint over another equally valid political viewpoint. Yes, my use of "equally valid" above is weaselly. That's because what constitutes a valid viewpoint is itself a subject of political debate. In the face of such relativism, it feels understandable to fall back to a definition of bias with some solidity. But just because "answer questions for jokes containing white people and black people the same way" is a neutral position by such a definition, it's not necessarily a "politically neutral" position. I call it nuance rather than mental gymnastics, but potato/potato.
    - nomel 3y ago
      > it's not necessarily a "politically neutral" position. I choose it because it's not a politically neutral position, as you appear to subtly perceive. There are several laws, and lawsuits, in my country, regarding systematic discrimination like this, in software, like face recognition, auto exposure, etc. In this case, a black man using ChatGPT has capabilities made unavailable to him, based on his skin color, and incorrect assumptions made by OpenAI, that a black man will not be using it, but a white man probably will. There are politicians currently campaigning on these exact points. Again, I think Sam Altman is correct in saying that people want AI biased to their worldview. Any aligned AI will be biased to someones worldview. That's the definition of alignment [1]. That bias, and perception of it, is not universal, it's cultural, personal, and political. If you don't perceive a bias in an aligned AI, it's only because someone biased it to your personal worldview.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]