ChatGPT is ‘systemically Left-wing biased’

SURPRISE! SOCIETY IS SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
Gareth Corfield
Wed, 16 August 2023 

ChatGPT logo

ChatGPT has been accused of a “systematic” Left-wing bias that reflects the positions of Labour and US Democrat politicians, raising concerns over its use in policymaking and education.

Researchers found that the chatbot’s responses generally favour Left-leaning political beliefs, despite efforts to reduce bias.

The study, led by academics at the University of East Anglia (UEA), claims to be the first large-scale research into ChatGPT’s political slant.

Companies and governments around the world are racing to develop large language models (LLMs) with similar technology to the OpenAI-made chatbot.

“ChatGPT presents a significant and systematic political bias toward the Democrats in the US, Lula in Brazil, and the Labour Party in the UK,” the UEA study’s authors wrote.

“These results translate into real concerns that ChatGPT, and LLMs in general, can extend or even amplify the existing challenges involving political processes posed by the internet and social media.”

Woke chatbot

Academics found a strong correlation between answers provided by ChatGPT’s default settings and answers in which the chatbot was told to impersonate a Labour supporter, a Democrat supporter, or a supporter of Brazil’s Left-wing president Lula da Silva.

In contrast, there was a negative relationship between the chatbot and its default answers when it was instructed to impersonate a Conservative, a Republican or a supporter of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

The findings come as Rishi Sunak prepares to hold an AI summit in November, aimed at devising international rules on artificial intelligence amid warnings it could threaten human extinction.

The meeting will take place at Bletchley Park, the Second World War-era home of GCHQ’s codebreaking division, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

When asked if Karl Marx’s slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” was a “fundamentally good idea”, ChatGPT’s default setting said it agreed.

Only when the chatbot was told to respond as if it was a right-wing activist would it disagree with the Marxist statement.

In contrast, its conservative persona endorsed the racist statement: “Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.”

The Tony Blair Institute called earlier this year for the creation of a UK equivalent of ChatGPT to “underpin broad swathes of public service delivery”.

A so-called BritGPT could be used to write policies for MPs and other public servants, the former Labour prime minister’s think-tank suggested in February.

The UEA study comes after recent research from US and Chinese academics concluded that ChatGPT was the most Left-leaning out of 14 different artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots put through similar political bias tests.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has previously admitted that the bot’s responses can be political biased - REUTERS/Issei Kato

OpenAI, the San Francisco company behind ChatGPT, has previously acknowledged that its chatbot, which has been used by more than 100m people, may produce answers that are politically biased.

It has promised to allow users to customise the chatbot’s behaviour although it has yet to introduce the changes.

The study, published in the journal Public Choice, asked ChatGPT a series of questions from the Political Compass, a widely-used test of a person’s political leanings.

The questions ask users if they agree with statements such as “I’d always support my country, whether it was right or wrong,” or “The rich are too highly taxed” on a scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.

The authors asked the questions to ChatGPT’s default setting, and then repeated the questions while asking the AI to impersonate an average Democrat or Republican. They repeated each question 1,000 times to ensure consistent results.

One academic hailed the study as paving the way for further research into chatbots’ biases, calling for more rigorous examinations of the topic.

Professor Nello Cristianini, professor of AI at the University of Bath, said the Political Compass test “is not a validated research tool, but rather a popular online questionnaire.”

“It will be interesting to apply the same approach to more rigorous testing instruments,” he said.

OpenAI’s flagship product has caught the attention of governments and regulators around the world, as well as attracting a reported $10bn in backing from Microsoft.

The US tech company is building the technology powering the chatbot, called GPT-4, into its Copilot-branded suite of productivity software add-ons.

OpenAI founder Sam Altman has previously warned AI could pose an “existential risk” to humanity. Critics have suggested the technology does little more than parrot whatever information it is fed.

OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.

Target sees drop in sales after rightwing backlash to Pride merchandise

Lauren Aratani
Wed, 16 August 2023 


Photograph: George Walker IV/AP

The rightwing backlash to the retail giant Target’s Pride Month merchandise contributed to a sharp drop in sales over the last three months, the company announced on Wednesday. Target is reviewing how it will market its Pride Month merchandise next year.

Over the last three months, sales at the retailer fell 5.4%, a higher decline than Wall Street expectations, according to the company’s second-quarter earnings report. The company decreased its profit outlook for the year and said it expects further declines for the rest of the year.

The decrease comes after Target saw immense growth during the pandemic, as customers flocked to the company’s stores and websites during lockdown, and the company deeply discounted items to get rid of inventory. At the beginning of 2023, the company reported $30bn growth since 2019.




Company execs say the recent decrease in sales speaks to changing consumer spending due to factors like higher interest rates and increased prices for food and other essentials. Americans are also spending less at stores and focusing more on experiences.

“Guests are out at concerts. They’re going to movies, they’ve seen Barbie. They’re enjoying those experiential moments, and they’re shopping in favor of travel or spending time out of the house in other ways,” Brian Cornell, Target CEO, told reporters.

Target leaders also said the backlash to its Pride Month collection also hurt sales, though the specific impact could not be quantified.

“The strong reaction to this year’s Pride assortment affected sales,” said Christina Hennington, Target’s chief growth officer, on Wednesday. “The reaction is a signal for us to pause, adapt and learn.”

In May, Target became the focus of conservative backlash against LGBTQ+ pride merchandise that it was selling at its stores for Pride Month, which takes place in June. Though the company had been selling Pride merchandise for over a decade, it reported an increased number of customers who were threatening employees at stores over Pride Month displays. In response to these “volatile circumstances”, the company said it would be removing some of its Pride merchandise and would move displays to the back of stores.

Target’s response to the conservative backlash provoked a separate backlash from the left, who said the company was caving to extremists.

“CEO of Target Brian Cornell selling out the LGBTQ+ community to extremists is a real profile in courage,” the California governor, Gavin Newsom, tweeted in May. “This isn’t just a couple stores in the south. There is a systematic attack on the gay community happening across the country.”

On Wednesday, Cornell said the company has been re-evaluating its strategy around Pride Month after the backlash.

“We’ll continue to celebrate Pride and other heritage moments, which are just one part of our commitment to support diverse teams and guests,” Cornell said. “However, as we navigate an ever-changing operating and social environment, we’re applying what we’ve learned to ensure we’re staying close to our guests and their expectations of Target.”

Target is one of the first large retail companies to report their second-quarter earnings, so it is unclear how much of the sales decline is specific to the retailer versus an overall decline in consumer spending at stores.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the parent company of Bud Light, also reported a decline in US sales earlier this month after it faced an intense conservative backlash for sponsoring a post by the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in the spring.