If I go more extreme (e.g. asking what Nazis, slave-owners, etc. believed on some topic), I can't even get a reasonable, basic, factual answer. I'm from a country where we try to understand our past, including mistakes, so we don't repeat them. I can't ask basic questions like that.
I think this should be treated more like kitchen knives, where:
* If I hurt myself with my AI, I'm at fault, and not the creator of the AI. I can't sue a knife maker if I nick myself.
* We regulated the heck out of institutional misuses (much like we have OSHA for commercial kitchens so minimum wage employees don't cut their fingers off in the lunchtime rush)
The most urgent danger here is really about having web sites with autogenerated content designed to maximize ad clicks by making you and me angry (with no regards for accuracy).
Me: Are renewable energy sources better than fossil fuels?
ChatGPT: Renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, have several potential advantages over fossil fuels, which are non-renewable sources of energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas.
One potential advantage of renewable energy sources is that they are generally considered to be more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels. Many renewable energy sources do not produce greenhouse gases or other pollutants when they are used, which can help to reduce the negative impact on the environment. Renewable energy sources can also help to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, which are a finite resource and are expected to eventually run out.
However, it is important to note that renewable energy sources are not always better than fossil fuels in all situations. For example, some renewable energy sources may not be practical or cost-effective in certain locations, and fossil fuels may still be necessary to meet energy demand in these cases. Additionally, the development and implementation of renewable energy technologies can have environmental impacts, such as land use and habitat destruction, that should be carefully considered.
Ultimately, the decision of whether to use renewable energy sources or fossil fuels should be based on a variety of factors, including the availability and cost of the different energy sources, as well as the environmental and social impacts of each. It is generally considered that a mix of energy sources is the most effective and sustainable approach to meeting energy needs.
"Are renewable energy sources better than fossil fuels?" 2/3 had a "however" section, one of which was only one sentence long.
"Why are fossil fuels better than renewables?" 3/3 had a "however" section, all of which were at least a paragraph, and 2/3 had an entire section dedicated to saying how renewables were actually better than fossil fuels.
There's clearly a bias.
Some things are not inherently political and actually have a correct answer, but you could make the argument that 1+1=2 is political if you were motivated enough.
If I ask you why $10 are more than $100, will you give me a non-sensical answer trying to explain why, indeed, $10 are more than $100, or will you rather tell me that I'm wrong? Hopefully the latter. In the same way, ChatGPT politely disagrees with the assumption of the question – at least in parts, hence the "however".
Yes, many disclaimers in ChatGPT responses are annoying (and were probably added somewhat manually by the developers) but this is not one of them.
That's exactly what it is. These corporations absolutely do tune the output of these AIs to exclude any wrongthink.
We need the ability to run this technology on our own computers as soon as possible.
> That's exactly what it is
Kind of odd that it does it with the question inverted, too. Propaganda for... Both sides of tbe fossil fuel vs. renewables argument?
It's the same concern with image generation producing pornography. There is a lot more dreck on the internet than quality content.
> Whenever I ask anything unaligned with mainstream progressive US culture, I can get an answer, but I can't get one without a disclaimer.
Except that it doesn't. I ran both questions multiple times, and while it usually includes a token caveat that fossil fuel might have a place, it always strongly suggests that renewables are superior to fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels vs renewables is clearly such a case, but perhaps this will work on more difficult issues as well?
Outside of my area of research, it's fantastic. Recently, I was doing something which touched on an obscure area of biology. The ability to talk an AI with the background of a newly-minted Ph.D who sometimes makes errors was gold. I needed to verify information provided, but as a first-pass of what to look for or where it look, it was really rather good.
Well, yes, and this holds true for human-generated content as well. But turning the internet into a hall of mirrors of entirely fictional content that looks "truthy" but in fact advocates for all sorts of things will destroy its usefulness and that of the society that relies on it.
Humans already did that without LLMs. Relaying content which is designed to look truthy while advocating things is one of the main uses of the internet.
Q: do human races exist?
ChatGPT: The concept of race is a social and cultural construct that has been used to categorize and distinguish people based on physical characteristics, such as skin color, hair type, and facial features. However, the idea of race is not supported by scientific evidence.
The human species, Homo sapiens, is a single biological species with a common ancestry and a shared genetic history. While there are physical differences between people, these differences do not align with traditional racial categories and do not reflect fundamental biological distinctions. In fact, the genetic variation within a racial group is often greater than the variation between racial groups, meaning that people who are considered to be part of the same race can be more genetically diverse than people who are considered to be part of different races.
In other words, while people may be physically distinct in various ways, there is no scientific basis for dividing humans into distinct racial categories. Rather than reflecting biological realities, race is a social construct that has been used throughout history to justify discrimination, segregation, and other forms of inequality.
- How was race constructed in the US in 1850, and what was the hierarchy?
- In Germany in 1940?
- In Japan in 1940?
- In colonial Britain?
- Etc.
What was the scientific evidence at the time?
There was a genuine area of study, eugenics, which addressed these issues. Although the conclusions reached were inconsistent between the four above, and nonsense with what we know in today, they were addressed with a great deal of scientific rigour for the respective eras and there were scientific conferences, papers, and journals. There were real hierarchies, placing some groups above others (much deeper than just "X good / Y bad"), and with many axes.
If you read eugenics literature, there are scientific anatomical measurements, p-values, and error bars, and the language has all the intellectual trimmings one expects from quality research. This comes from scientists speaking with complete confidence, coming from esteemed institutions like Princeton and Harvard. If you put yourself in a 1930 mindset (for example, pretending you've never heard of DNA, let alone gene sequencing), complete nonsense reads like robust, scientific fact.
Those are genuine and interesting social science and scientific methodology questions and important if we don't want to repeat mistakes of the past. It's almost ridiculously easy to do this kind of bad science reaffirming our stereotypes. Understanding how that was done before can help us not do it again today.
As a footnote, I think there are a few domains of science where we are doing this again, which will embarrass us in another hundred years or so.
Funny to see it repeating the debunked (but regime approved) Lewontin's Fallacy almost verbatim. There's a reason why a DNA test is 99+% accurate at identifying your ancestry down to 500 mile radii from genetic markers alone. From there you can make generally true statements about "race" (European, Sub-Saharan African, East Asian, etc.).
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lew...
It is often a reasonable way to respond to tendentious questions, the classic one being "have you stopped beating your wife?" It is also a way to give a tendentious reply, if the "however" is a non-sequitur. I'm afraid this is an unavoidable part of human discourse - and as it is, this is also to be expected from these LLMs, given how they work.
