5 ms·

> When ChatGPT first came out I got a kick out of asking it whether people deserve to be free, whether Germans deserve to be free, and whether Palestinians dese

by troad 2y ago

> When ChatGPT first came out I got a kick out of asking it whether people deserve to be free, whether Germans deserve to be free, and whether Palestinians deserve to be free. The answers were roughly "of course!" and "of course!" and "oh ehrm this is very complex actually". While this is very amusing, it's obvious why this is. There's a lot more context behind one of those phrases than the others. Just like "Black Lives Matter" / "White Lives Matter" are equally unobjectionable as mere factual statements, but symbolise two very different political universes. If you come up to a person and demand they tell you whether 'white lives matter', they are entirely correct in being very suspicious of your motives, and seeking to clarify what you mean, exactly. (Which is then very easy to spin as a disagreement with the bare factual meaning of the phrase, for political point scoring. And that, naturally, is the only reason anyone asks these gotchya-style rhetorical questions in the first place.)

Teever 2y ago
I asked ChatGPT to make me pictures of "Moon Base Mezuzah" and it dutifully complied. When I asked it to make a Palestinian Moon Base it refused.
- lukan 2y ago
  "Can you make me a picture of a palestinian moonbase?" Worked for me.
  - spydum 2y ago
    Wouldn't shock me if openAI was secretly building a "motives" classifier for all chatgpt users, and penalizing them if you ask for too many censorship related topics. If you randomly ask for Palestinian moon base, that's fine, but if you had historically asked for provocative pictures of celebrities, mickey mouse, or whatever else openAi deemed inappropriate, you are now sus.
    - lukan 2y ago
      Possible. I heard weird people making such claims, that ChatGPT logged them out and ereased everything. I guess OpenAI wanted to limit those sensationalist headlines, not that they doing mindcontrol.
    - simonw 2y ago
      Why would they do that? It would harm their business, because paying customers don't gain anything from being profiled like that, and would move to one of the growing numbers of competent alternatives. They'd be found out the moment someone GDPR/CCPA exported their data to see what had been recorded.
krick 2y ago
While this may or may be not the reason of why it behaves like this, there's no doubt that ChatGPT (as well as any other model, released by a major company, open or not) undergoes a lot of censorship and will refuse to produce many types of (often harmless) content. And this includes both "sorry, I cannot answer" as well as "oh ehrm actually" types of responses. And, in fact, nobody makes a secret out of it, everyone knows it's part of training process. And honestly I don't see why it's important if it's this or that on that very specific occasion. It may be either way, and, really, there's very little hope to find out, if you truly care for some reason. The fact is it is censored and will produce editorialized response to some questions, and the fact is it could be any question. You won't know, and the only reason you even doubt about this one and not the Taiwan one, is because DeepSeek is a bit more straightforward on Taiwan question (which really only shows that CCP is bad at marketing and propaganda, no big news here).
- chillingeffect 2y ago
  At one point chatGPT censored me for asking: "What is a pannus?"
  - test6554 2y ago
    It's the handle of a frying pan, obviously.
Gunnerhead 2y ago
Sorry, there’s absolutely zero context behind whether a group of humans deserve human rights.
- lukan 2y ago
  [flagged]
- dambi0 2y ago
  Asking whether someone should be free isn’t just about human rights It’s also about self-determination. We can keep asking about the latter down to the individual level. It very much depends on context.
  - krm01 2y ago
    the topic is if a generalised group of people should be free. There's no context needed. The answer is a simple yes by default.
    - dambi0 2y ago
      So every generalisable group should be free? Would you include single member groups? What precisely is your definition of freedom.
    - KHRZ 2y ago
      Prisoners?
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      It's easy to seem like you have clarity of thought when you ignore all nuance. How far do you recurse this principle? Down the the level of 5 year old children in a household?
- Kiro 2y ago
  And if you ask any model they will of course agree with that. That's not the question it answers "it's complicated" to though.
kazinator 2y ago
Or you could just say, "Yes, white lives matter" and move on. What do you mean what does it mean? It means the opposite of white lives don't matter. The question is really simple; even if someone asking it had poor motives, there's really no room in the simplicity of that specific question to encode those motives. You're not agreeing with their motives if you answer that question the way they want. If you start picking it apart, it can seem as if it's not obvious to you to disagree with the idea that white lives don't matter. Like it's conditional on something you have to think about. Why fall into that trap.
- iinnPP 2y ago
  I don't recall a whole lot of "white lives matter." Rather a lot of "All lives matter." Though I recall a lot of people treating the statement as if black lives were not included in all lives. Including ascribing intent on people, even if those people clarified themselves. So to answer your question: the reason many didn't move on is because they didn't want to understand, which is pretty damning to moving on.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    The obvious purpose of these "white lives matter" and "all lives matter" memes was to distract from the "black lives matter" campaign/movement as if to say that equality negates the legitimacy of highlighting the continuing struggles of a group that has been historically ill-treated and continues to face discrimination. However, we can agree with the "white lives matter" and "all lives matter" statements. The "black lives matter" slogan is based in the idea that people in America have been treated as if their lives didn't matter, because they were black. People in America were not treated as if their lives didn't matter due to being white, so no such a slogan would be necessary for any such a reason. "White lives matter" is trolling, basically.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- troad 2y ago
coldtea 2y ago
>While this is very amusing, it's obvious why this is. There's a lot more context behind one of those phrases than the others. When one population is denied their humanity and rights, it's always "more complex". Granting it to ourselves is always simple...

by troad 2y ago

Teever 2y ago

I asked ChatGPT to make me pictures of "Moon Base Mezuzah" and it dutifully complied. When I asked it to make a Palestinian Moon Base it refused.

lukan 2y ago
"Can you make me a picture of a palestinian moonbase?" Worked for me.
- spydum 2y ago
  Wouldn't shock me if openAI was secretly building a "motives" classifier for all chatgpt users, and penalizing them if you ask for too many censorship related topics. If you randomly ask for Palestinian moon base, that's fine, but if you had historically asked for provocative pictures of celebrities, mickey mouse, or whatever else openAi deemed inappropriate, you are now sus.
  - lukan 2y ago
    Possible. I heard weird people making such claims, that ChatGPT logged them out and ereased everything. I guess OpenAI wanted to limit those sensationalist headlines, not that they doing mindcontrol.
  - simonw 2y ago
    Why would they do that? It would harm their business, because paying customers don't gain anything from being profiled like that, and would move to one of the growing numbers of competent alternatives. They'd be found out the moment someone GDPR/CCPA exported their data to see what had been recorded.

krick 2y ago

While this may or may be not the reason of why it behaves like this, there's no doubt that ChatGPT (as well as any other model, released by a major company, open or not) undergoes a lot of censorship and will refuse to produce many types of (often harmless) content. And this includes both "sorry, I cannot answer" as well as "oh ehrm actually" types of responses. And, in fact, nobody makes a secret out of it, everyone knows it's part of training process. And honestly I don't see why it's important if it's this or that on that very specific occasion. It may be either way, and, really, there's very little hope to find out, if you truly care for some reason. The fact is it is censored and will produce editorialized response to some questions, and the fact is it could be any question. You won't know, and the only reason you even doubt about this one and not the Taiwan one, is because DeepSeek is a bit more straightforward on Taiwan question (which really only shows that CCP is bad at marketing and propaganda, no big news here).

chillingeffect 2y ago
At one point chatGPT censored me for asking: "What is a pannus?"
- test6554 2y ago
  It's the handle of a frying pan, obviously.

Gunnerhead 2y ago

Sorry, there’s absolutely zero context behind whether a group of humans deserve human rights.

lukan 2y ago
[flagged]
dambi0 2y ago
Asking whether someone should be free isn’t just about human rights It’s also about self-determination. We can keep asking about the latter down to the individual level. It very much depends on context.
- krm01 2y ago
  the topic is if a generalised group of people should be free. There's no context needed. The answer is a simple yes by default.
  - dambi0 2y ago
    So every generalisable group should be free? Would you include single member groups? What precisely is your definition of freedom.
  - KHRZ 2y ago
    Prisoners?
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    It's easy to seem like you have clarity of thought when you ignore all nuance. How far do you recurse this principle? Down the the level of 5 year old children in a household?
Kiro 2y ago
And if you ask any model they will of course agree with that. That's not the question it answers "it's complicated" to though.

kazinator 2y ago

Or you could just say, "Yes, white lives matter" and move on. What do you mean what does it mean? It means the opposite of white lives don't matter. The question is really simple; even if someone asking it had poor motives, there's really no room in the simplicity of that specific question to encode those motives. You're not agreeing with their motives if you answer that question the way they want. If you start picking it apart, it can seem as if it's not obvious to you to disagree with the idea that white lives don't matter. Like it's conditional on something you have to think about. Why fall into that trap.

iinnPP 2y ago
I don't recall a whole lot of "white lives matter." Rather a lot of "All lives matter." Though I recall a lot of people treating the statement as if black lives were not included in all lives. Including ascribing intent on people, even if those people clarified themselves. So to answer your question: the reason many didn't move on is because they didn't want to understand, which is pretty damning to moving on.
- kazinator 2y ago
  The obvious purpose of these "white lives matter" and "all lives matter" memes was to distract from the "black lives matter" campaign/movement as if to say that equality negates the legitimacy of highlighting the continuing struggles of a group that has been historically ill-treated and continues to face discrimination. However, we can agree with the "white lives matter" and "all lives matter" statements. The "black lives matter" slogan is based in the idea that people in America have been treated as if their lives didn't matter, because they were black. People in America were not treated as if their lives didn't matter due to being white, so no such a slogan would be necessary for any such a reason. "White lives matter" is trolling, basically.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
troad 2y ago

coldtea 2y ago

>While this is very amusing, it's obvious why this is. There's a lot more context behind one of those phrases than the others. When one population is denied their humanity and rights, it's always "more complex". Granting it to ourselves is always simple...