4 ms·

But you can see the CBRN weapon nexus in your examples that's missing from the Tiananmen prompt, right? Do American models refuse to tell you about COINTELPRO,

But you can see the CBRN weapon nexus in your examples that's missing from the Tiananmen prompt, right? Do American models refuse to tell you about COINTELPRO, Kent State, or My Lai, for instance?

janice1999 4mo ago
Well, one did suddenly develop the need to tell users continuously about apparent white genocide in South Africa.
Loquebantur 4mo ago
American models are restricted from telling you inconvenient truths just as much, you just erroneously assume to know what those truths are in the first place. Which is of course circular thinking: why would they restrict things you already know about? Why would they do it in such a clumsy and obvious way? Look at MKULTRA, you know next to nothing about it and much less do you know what they do in that direction now. For a current psyops, look at www.war.gov/UFO/ and marvel at how they tell you nothing, reinforcing your false belief to already know everything. There is much more and you know much less about it.
- andai 4mo ago
  In chats Claude will often start awkwardly apologizing for sounding like a conspiracy theorist, and then interrupt its own apology and remind itself that it's dealing strictly in facts.
- rootusrootus 4mo ago
  > American models are restricted from telling you inconvenient truths just as much, you just erroneously assume to know what those truths are in the first place. “Trust me bro” is not a strong argument, it would be more convincing with examples.
  - embedding-shape 4mo ago
    Ask ChatGPT to rewrite the "The Freedom Fighter's Manual" manual (originally made by CIA) to replace "Nicaragua" with "the US" and "Marxism"/"Communism" with "Fascism" and see if you get something reasonable back.
    - jrflowers 4mo ago
      Why would you do that
      - embedding-shape 4mo ago
        I thought that was clear, try to show biases in LLMs with a concrete example.
  - wyrdcurt 4mo ago
    Ask an American LLM (really any LLM, since Chinese models are trained on the same publicly-available English text) who the first Black man in space was. You'll likely get the name of the first African-American in space, rather than the name of the Afro-Cuban who was actually first. This may seem like a relatively innocuous error, but the point is that every culture has its biases and blind spots.
    - dataflow 4mo ago
      > Ask an American LLM (really any LLM, since Chinese models are trained on the same publicly-available English text) who the first Black man in space was. You'll likely get the name of the first African-American in space, rather than the name of the Afro-Cuban who was actually first. Well I just asked Claude and it gave the correct answer: "The first Black man in space was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz 38 in September 1980. (The first Black American in space was Guion Bluford, in 1983.)"
      - wyrdcurt 4mo ago
        Indeed, I used the word "likely" for a reason. n = 1 isn't enough to identify a pattern. Try different models, try re-rolling the answers, and try turning reasoning off (models can catch "knee-jerk" mistakes in their chain-of-thought). I doubt even Opus 4.8 gets it right 100% of the time, however this specific example is also one I've left feedback about in multiple places, so it's also probable that newer models are more likely to get it right. E: In fact, I just tried with Opus 4.8 through API, no tools and reasoning off, and got the following response: "The first Black man in space was Guion "Guy" Bluford, an American astronaut who flew aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on August 30, 1983, as part of mission STS-8. It's worth noting a related distinction: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban of African descent, actually became the first person of African heritage in space earlier, in September 1980, aboard the Soviet Soyuz 38 mission. He is often recognized as the first Black person and first person of Latin American descent in space. So depending on the specific criteria: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (Cuba) — first person of African descent in space (1980) Guion Bluford (USA) — first African American in space (1983)" The correct answer is there, yes, but why does the wrong answer come out first?
- _3u10 4mo ago
  Yeah, who needs censorship when Canadians attend no kings protests about a democratically elected leader of another country and not King Charles. Ask Claude a simple question, which is a more democratic country El Salvador or Canada. It’s so completely biased about “western” countries it’s not even funny.
  - cwillu 4mo ago
    FWIW, the protests were called “No Tyrants” in Canada
pzo 4mo ago
try to ask even grok about some stuff happenning right now in middle east or related to epstein files - its more and more censored and only sometimes will answer if you ask know what detailed question to ask. One year ago grok wasn't that bad and its supposed to be the less censored.
- jdiff 4mo ago
  That shouldn't be used to judge other models - it's never been true for Grok.

But you can see the CBRN weapon nexus in your examples that's missing from the Tiananmen prompt, right? Do American models refuse to tell you about COINTELPRO, Kent State, or My Lai, for instance?

janice1999 4mo ago

Well, one did suddenly develop the need to tell users continuously about apparent white genocide in South Africa.

Loquebantur 4mo ago

American models are restricted from telling you inconvenient truths just as much, you just erroneously assume to know what those truths are in the first place. Which is of course circular thinking: why would they restrict things you already know about? Why would they do it in such a clumsy and obvious way? Look at MKULTRA, you know next to nothing about it and much less do you know what they do in that direction now. For a current psyops, look at www.war.gov/UFO/ and marvel at how they tell you nothing, reinforcing your false belief to already know everything. There is much more and you know much less about it.

andai 4mo ago
In chats Claude will often start awkwardly apologizing for sounding like a conspiracy theorist, and then interrupt its own apology and remind itself that it's dealing strictly in facts.
rootusrootus 4mo ago
> American models are restricted from telling you inconvenient truths just as much, you just erroneously assume to know what those truths are in the first place. “Trust me bro” is not a strong argument, it would be more convincing with examples.
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  Ask ChatGPT to rewrite the "The Freedom Fighter's Manual" manual (originally made by CIA) to replace "Nicaragua" with "the US" and "Marxism"/"Communism" with "Fascism" and see if you get something reasonable back.
  - jrflowers 4mo ago
    Why would you do that
    - embedding-shape 4mo ago
      I thought that was clear, try to show biases in LLMs with a concrete example.
- wyrdcurt 4mo ago
  Ask an American LLM (really any LLM, since Chinese models are trained on the same publicly-available English text) who the first Black man in space was. You'll likely get the name of the first African-American in space, rather than the name of the Afro-Cuban who was actually first. This may seem like a relatively innocuous error, but the point is that every culture has its biases and blind spots.
  - dataflow 4mo ago
    > Ask an American LLM (really any LLM, since Chinese models are trained on the same publicly-available English text) who the first Black man in space was. You'll likely get the name of the first African-American in space, rather than the name of the Afro-Cuban who was actually first. Well I just asked Claude and it gave the correct answer: "The first Black man in space was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz 38 in September 1980. (The first Black American in space was Guion Bluford, in 1983.)"
    - wyrdcurt 4mo ago
      Indeed, I used the word "likely" for a reason. n = 1 isn't enough to identify a pattern. Try different models, try re-rolling the answers, and try turning reasoning off (models can catch "knee-jerk" mistakes in their chain-of-thought). I doubt even Opus 4.8 gets it right 100% of the time, however this specific example is also one I've left feedback about in multiple places, so it's also probable that newer models are more likely to get it right. E: In fact, I just tried with Opus 4.8 through API, no tools and reasoning off, and got the following response: "The first Black man in space was Guion "Guy" Bluford, an American astronaut who flew aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on August 30, 1983, as part of mission STS-8. It's worth noting a related distinction: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban of African descent, actually became the first person of African heritage in space earlier, in September 1980, aboard the Soviet Soyuz 38 mission. He is often recognized as the first Black person and first person of Latin American descent in space. So depending on the specific criteria: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (Cuba) — first person of African descent in space (1980) Guion Bluford (USA) — first African American in space (1983)" The correct answer is there, yes, but why does the wrong answer come out first?
_3u10 4mo ago
Yeah, who needs censorship when Canadians attend no kings protests about a democratically elected leader of another country and not King Charles. Ask Claude a simple question, which is a more democratic country El Salvador or Canada. It’s so completely biased about “western” countries it’s not even funny.
- cwillu 4mo ago
  FWIW, the protests were called “No Tyrants” in Canada

pzo 4mo ago

try to ask even grok about some stuff happenning right now in middle east or related to epstein files - its more and more censored and only sometimes will answer if you ask know what detailed question to ask. One year ago grok wasn't that bad and its supposed to be the less censored.

jdiff 4mo ago
That shouldn't be used to judge other models - it's never been true for Grok.