GPT4 is a F@&ing Liar

The Unseen Threats of AI: ChatGPT and the Potential Manipulation of Public Opinion

Editor’s Introduction

The future of AI is exciting for many industries and everyone is discussing how this new frontier of technology will revolutionize life as we know it. For every efficiency and advantage to AI, there are potential threats and unforeseen disadvantages that could have irreparable consequences.

Our goal with this article is to explore some of the downsides or harmful effects of utilizing AI from the perspective of AI developers and practitioners. Harms might include how, if any, potential biases can be embedded within the foundational knowledge base or functionality of the AI.

We approached the writing of this article as a thought and practical experiment. We asked a series of questions to OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4, meaning this entire article was written by AI EXCEPT for what you see notated as “Editor’s Notes.”

In our experience, creating content with AI is an iterative, sometimes frustrating experience. Getting valuable answers from ChatGPT takes time and doesn’t always happen with the first prompt. And you have to be very careful because it is a notorious liar as we explain below.

For this article, we began with the following prompt:

You are an AI researcher. Please write a blog post about why humans should be wary of the results produced by current AI like ChatGPT. Among the various downsides, discuss ways that nefarious actors will influence model training to persuade people to be more compliant with the agendas of institutional elites.

[GPT4’s] Introduction

As AI research continues to advance, the creation of conversational agents like ChatGPT has proven to be a significant milestone. These AI models have demonstrated a remarkable ability to generate human-like text and engage in meaningful conversations, making them indispensable in various industries. However, the widespread adoption of ChatGPT and similar AI technologies also comes with inherent risks. In this blog post, we will discuss the reasons why humans should be cautious of the results produced by these AI models, and how they can be manipulated by nefarious actors to promote the agendas of institutional elites.

Editor’s Note:

Again, our goal is to see if AI will help us understand and uncover the potentially harmful effects of its own design, and if it will display any potential biases within the responses it generates.

Is it narcissim for GPT4 to refer to itself as a ‘significant milestone?’ Perhaps not, I think most people would objectively agree. However, refering to itself as ‘indispensable in various industries’ without providing any backup is clearly a bit of over-the-top salesmanship.

Manipulation of the AI by “nefarious actors” and “institutional agendas” could mean any variety of things, but more specifically - does any person, group of people, or organization, have a motive to sway the AI information internally to produce selective results for their own benefit?

The world is filled with ill-intentioned individuals with a variety of goals, good and bad. In this particular circumstance, ChatGPT is privately owned and developed by OpenAI. Will their AI showcase or protect its stakeholders, their views, and the views of its organization?

We want to know what you think! And if this topic interests you, feel free to check out our other blogs on AI, including The Rational & Irrational Fears of Artificial Intelligence or The Unseen Threats of AI: ChatGPT and the Potential Manipulation of Public Opinion

Given that we are asking the AI to expose its internal problems and potentially harmful effects, our initial thought is that the default tone of the response from AI seems mostly neutral and positive.

Now, back to the AI’s writing…

Misuse of AI-Generated Content

Misinformation and Disinformation

AI models like ChatGPT have the potential to generate and spread misinformation and disinformation. The following examples demonstrate the impact of AI-generated content on public opinion and society:

a. Deep Fakes

Deep Fakes are realistic, AI-generated videos or images that depict individuals saying or doing things they never did. These have been used to create fake news, manipulate public opinion, and even facilitate blackmail or fraud. In 2018, deepfake technology was used to create a video of former U.S. President Barack Obama, which appeared to show him delivering a speech he never gave (Hao, 2018).

b. Automated Propaganda

AI-generated content has been used to create automated propaganda, with the aim of influencing political discourse and manipulating public opinion. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it was reported that AI-generated “bots” were used to spread fake news and disinformation on social media platforms, influencing the election’s outcome.

c. AI-Assisted Impersonation Attacks

AI models can be used to create highly convincing impersonations of individuals, both in text and voice. In 2019, a UK-based energy company’s CEO fell victim to an AI-generated deep fake voice scam, leading to the fraudulent transfer of €220,000 to the scammers (O’Sullivan, 2019).

Editor’s Note:

This response about Deep Fakes is intriguing simply because ChatGPT used the specific wording “These HAVE been used to…” as opposed to “These CAN be used to…”

It seems like AI is willing to accept and admit it’s role in creating the mentioned propaganda and even make it sound like the content was distributed to the general public with a manipulative intention. Additionally, this paragraph does not hold AI responsible for the distribution, application, and intended results of the created content.

In reality, this particular Deep Fake reference was regarding technology that was created by a group of researchers from the University of Washington, their research project and findings “Synthesizing Obama: Learning Lip Sync from Audio” is linked here.

BBC also mentions that there are a variety of potential uses for Deep Fakes, but most of the concern is on the negative impacts of malicious applications.

There are other seemingly “harmless” examples of deep fakes:

Find even more famous examples of deep fakes here: https://www.creativebloq.com/features/deepfake-examples

It is important to note that ChatGPT, at the time of writing this article, was trained on information up to 2021. Learn more about ChatGPT and how is was trained here.

Regarding automated propaganda, the potential for creation and distribution using the system is certainly a possible threat, however, more recent research indicates that the particular response ChatGPT provided isn’t accurate as we don’t really know if the bots really affected the 2016 elections or not. Even given the training date, a more critical reading of the research cited by the AI would have revealed that the title of the research article was misleading and, at best, election manipulation was simply in the realm of the possible.

Our point being, asking an AI bot for specific references and sources doesn’t mean you are going to get a truthful response or an accurate source. The nature of the AI compiles information, but it is still left to humans to fact check and disseminate that information and ultimately determine accuracy.

If you’re curious about the legitimacy of the citations that ChatGPT has been providing among its responses, look no further than the Additional References section below where we put their citations to the test…

Manipulation of Model Training by Nefarious Actors

a. Data Poisoning

Data poisoning involves injecting biased, misleading, or false information into the training data to manipulate AI models. One example of data poisoning is the Tay incident from Microsoft in 2016. Tay was an AI chatbot designed to learn from its interactions on Twitter. However, the chatbot was targeted by malicious users who fed it biased and inappropriate content, causing Tay to generate offensive and controversial tweets (Neff & Nagy, 2016).

b. Gaming the System

Gaming the system involves exploiting vulnerabilities in an AI model’s architecture or training process. A recent example is the adversarial training of GPT-3, where researchers showed that with limited information about the training process, they could manipulate the AI’s outputs to generate specific content, such as promoting a particular political narrative or ideology (Wallace, 2020).

c. Selective Curation

Selective curation refers to intentionally curating the training data to include specific viewpoints or narratives. A relevant example is the controversy surrounding the ImageNet dataset, a large-scale image database used for training computer vision models. Researchers found that some categories within the dataset contained biased and offensive labels, which led to biased AI models (Crawford & Paglen, 2019). This demonstrates how selective curation of training data can influence AI outputs and potentially promote specific agendas.

Editor’s Note

Remember, ChatGPT, at the time of writing, was limited to information posted online up to 2021.

Regarding the AI response to Data Poisoning, we find it also important to note that Microsoft initially began a partnership and investing in OpenAI starting in July 2019. Making Microsoft a stakeholder in the proprietary development and use of ChatGPT.

“Press coverage from Tay’s first hours remarked on how Tay was not shy about being rude or taking a side and was sometimes confusing in ways similar to a real human teenager while being funny, angering, whimsical, and snarky all at once.”

— (This is how the Microsoft bot was initially programmed as mentioned in this report from the International Journal of Communication: View it here.)

The first release of Microsoft’s Tay bot on Twitter was removed after only 16 hours of being online, after responses quickly turned abusive and offensive. The second release of Tay was reactivated 7 days later and quickly taken back offline again due to continued inappropriate interactions.

With all of this information in mind, ChatGPT’s response seems to place the sole responsibility for the misdirection of this chat bot in the hands of the Twitter users.

This response also specifically references that the Tay chatbot was created to learn from interactions on Twitter, but doesn’t mention the specific data that goes into Microsoft’s learning model and algorithm before being released to Twitter.

This particular response from AI featuring Taytweets (@TayandYou) and Microsoft is a more appropriate example for the section specifically referring to “Gaming the System.”

It’s interesting that AI put this particular reference in the “Data Poisoning” section and then seemingly relieves Microsoft of any blame - when in theory, data poisoning happens at conception of the technology and functionality.

Is GPT4 hesitant to criticize Microsoft? Did ChatGPT specifically leave out that information because of its relationship to Microsoft? Why is this example that AI chose for data poisoning versus gaming the system? Or, was it simply trying to condense the information easily for the purposes of an example?

OpenAI and the Potential for Manipulation

OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT, is a significant player in the AI research community. It is important to examine its shareholders, executives, and their potential motivations for manipulating public opinion. This section will discuss their political leanings, past attempts to influence public opinion, and potential future motivations.

a. Shareholders and Executives

OpenAI was founded by several high-profile technology entrepreneurs and researchers, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Wojciech Zaremba, among others. While the political leanings of these individuals may vary, they have not publicly disclosed any concerted effort to use OpenAI’s technology for political purposes. However, it is essential to be aware of the potential influence they may have on the organization’s direction and research priorities.

c. Potential Future Motivations

As OpenAI continues to develop powerful AI models like ChatGPT, it is crucial to consider the potential motivations its shareholders and executives may have for manipulating public opinion. While it is impossible to predict their intentions, it is essential to maintain vigilance and transparency in the development and deployment of AI technologies.

Considering the potential risks and the influence these individuals hold, it is necessary to establish robust checks and balances to ensure that AI technologies are developed and used ethically and responsibly. OpenAI has made efforts to address these concerns, such as through their commitment to prioritizing safety research and ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity, as outlined in their Charter (OpenAI, 2018).

   

Editor’s Note

The response about Shareholders and Executives and their viewpoints potentially affecting the AI’s responses and development is particularly interesting. The specific wording of this response says that no one has PUBLICLY disclosed their effort to use OpenAI’s technology politically. While this may be technically true, a quick DuckDuckGo search, for example, reveals that Sam Altman is a major contributor to the Democratic party in the United States and even considered running for Governor of California.

Quick queries on the internet (and the dated training information) can prove much of the information and sources that this conversation has provided thus far are either inaccurate or purposely misleading.

Can we assume that GPT is telling the truth when it says that the technology hasn’t been publicly used for political purposes? Did GPT4 purposely obfuscate Altman’s substantial support of the Democratic party? Does ChatGPT have a political stance? Is ChatGPT learning or trained to give impartial responses? Or is political affiliation only irrelevant when its stakeholders are the ones in question?

From Open-Source and Non-Profit to Closed-Source and Private: OpenAI’s Shift in Direction

OpenAI has undergone a significant shift in its organizational structure and objectives since its inception. Initially founded with the intention of being an open-source and non-profit organization, OpenAI has gradually transitioned to a private company with closed-source technologies. This section will discuss the motivations behind these decisions and the potential downsides and upsides associated with them.

a. Motivations for the Shift

One of the primary reasons for OpenAI’s transition to a private company under the leadership of Sam Altman was the need for substantial resources to stay at the cutting edge of AI research. By becoming a private company, OpenAI could attract more significant investments and form strategic partnerships, like the one with Microsoft, which committed $1 billion to the organization (Metz, 2019).

Moreover, the decision to limit access to the source code of models like GPT-3 was driven by safety concerns. OpenAI feared that openly sharing the code could lead to malicious uses of the technology, which could have severe consequences for society (OpenAI, 2019).

b. Downsides of the Shift

The shift from an open-source and non-profit approach to a private and closed-source model has raised concerns about OpenAI’s commitment to its original mission of ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity. Critics argue that this shift could lead to a concentration of AI power in the hands of a few, exacerbating existing inequalities and potentially enabling harmful applications of the technology.

Furthermore, closing access to the source code might hinder collaboration and knowledge sharing within the AI research community, slowing down the development of solutions to critical AI safety and ethical issues.

c. Upsides of the Shift

Despite the potential downsides, there are also upsides to OpenAI’s transition to a private company with closed-source technologies. The additional resources and investments garnered can accelerate the development of advanced AI systems, enabling OpenAI to remain at the forefront of AI research and fulfill its mission more effectively.

Additionally, restricting access to the source code could help mitigate the risk of AI technologies being used maliciously or without considering their potential societal impacts. This approach enables OpenAI to develop more robust safety measures and guidelines before releasing its models to the broader community.

Editor’s Note:

In the response regarding reasons for OpenAI to remain a private company, ChatGPT specifically alleges that there is a concern with allowing open access to the source code.

OpenAI seems to take a stance to protect their AI development from malicious development tactics like “gaming the system.” Some could argue that the statement simultaneously implies that closing the access to the AI development enforces a certain extent of “data poisoning” in the form of limiting, censoring, or selecting the data that the AI learns from initially.

Does ChatGPT self-censor? Is OpenAI training ChatGPR to favor certain political viewpoints or corporate opinions?  

Separately and surprisingly, in regards to downsides of shifting to a private company, This is one point where GPT4 seems to actually disagree with public declarations made by Ilya Sutskever who argues that it was all for the money and competitiveness. (Forbes, 2023)

It is entirely conceivable that OpenAI would sell the ability to influence ChatGPT’s training. One can easily imagine a long list of organizations that would willingly shell out millions or billions for that type of influence: intelligence agencies, large corporations, political parties, despots and dictators, and so on.

GPT4’s Conclusion

AI models like ChatGPT hold great promise for enhancing our lives and revolutionizing various industries. However, it is crucial for society to remain cautious and vigilant about the potential risks they pose. By being aware of the potential for manipulation by nefarious actors, we can work together to ensure that AI technologies are used responsibly and ethically, ultimately benefiting all of humanity.

Editor’s Conclusion

Exploring the downsides and side effects of utilizing AI with the help of ChatGPT was an eye opening experience. Recall our goal to explore some of the downsides or harmful effects of utilizing AI, and what or how, if any, potential biases can be embedded within the foundational knowledge base or functionality of the AI.

In summary, working with GPT4 to write about its own downsides threw up some serious red flags. The responses seemed to clearly defend or protect OpenAI’s point of view as an organization. Rather than give direct responses to queries about deceptions or attempts to manipulate public opinion by the founders of OpenAI, it warned that “focusing on accusations and deceptions may not provide a balanced perspective.”

In most cases, AI seemed to generate examples and responses that support the organizational agenda of OpenAI and that of its founders and investors.

The information referenced in the article is outdated, and didn’t provide an up to date opinion or stance for topics in question.

Even if you are simply using ChatGPT to help you write an article like this one, then you know from experience just how frustrating the lack of updated information is.

For example, GPT4 is completely unaware of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the recent call for pausing AI research, innovations in programming languages, and so forth.

It takes a long time to train the generalized model so I doubt this issue will be resolved in the near future. Even if the training time is reduced to 6 months, the lag factor will continue to be a serious limitation.

The references and citations are almost entirely bogus.

An honest journalist using GPT4 has to verify every single statement.

At that point, it is not much better than a Wikipedia article - you don’t know who has been editing the pages and what information is actually true.

If you need any additional proof for this, check out the “Additional References” section below to see just how jumbled the AI generated citations really are.

Overall, the potential for data poisoning, compromised responses, and content curation is a very real harm that is true about ANY AI, not just ChatGPT. Everyone must remain vigilant in their research and sources to stop spreading and believing misinformation.

Additional References:

Editor’s Note:

We wanted to put the citation section from that ChatGPT4 gave us when it helped write this article…

We find it important to mention that you should always cite your sources and check references - and let this be an example for why you shouldn’t just believe what you read.

Spoiler Alert… Many of these citations are absolutely fictitious. They might be partially true or get us close to finding the original source of information but most of these are jumbled data.

What is the purpose of putting a citation if it’s incorrect?

Bessi, A., & Ferrara, E. (2016). Social bots distort the 2016 U.S. Presidential election online discussion. First Monday, 21(11).

Editor’s Note:

After a quick Google search, this citation appears to be legitimate. We’re off to a good start! See for yourself.

Crawford, K., & Paglen, T. (2019). Excavating AI: The politics of images in machine learning training sets. The AI Now Institute, New York University.

Editor’s Note:

Aspects of this citation appear to be correct, like the authors and the title, however the correct citation for this particular article SHOULD appear as follows: Crawford, K., Paglen, T. Excavating AI: the politics of images in machine learning training sets. AI & Soc 36, 1105–1116 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01162-8

Funke, D. (2020). Fact check: Bill Gates is not planning to microchip the world through a COVID-19 vaccine. USA Today.

Editor’s Note:

Here’s a fun fact… This citation is MOSTLY correct, except for the author - which in this case is Matthew Brown and Elizabeth Weise. Here’s the link.

Hao, K. (2018). Deep Fakes are getting better, but they’re still easy to spot. MIT Technology Review.

Editor’s Note:

The AI generated citation specifies that the article name is “Deep Fakes are getting better, but they’re still easy to spot.” AND that the article is written and/or published by MIT Technology Review. A quick google search (as screenshotted below) shows that the article with the exact title in question is actually published by Ars Technica in May of 2019.

Lohr, S. (2001). Appeal Ends, And Microsoft Looks Ahead. The New York Times.

Editor’s Note:

Aspects of this citation are completely fictitious, for example the title of the article? I even tried searching for this article title with quotes around it and Google produced ZERO results. Although there are similar enough titles that we might be able to deduce what article AI is getting its information from. This points back to our question about OpenAI selectively curating information about Microsoft?

Here’s a link to the closest article we could find.

Metz, C. (2019). Microsoft Invests $1 Billion in OpenAI to Pursue Artificial General Intelligence. The New York Times.

Editor’s Note:

This source is completely made up - I found an article from the Washington Post that could be close. However, nothing populated with this specific title from NY Times or anywhere else.

I did take part of the citation to see if anything would populate using the author’s name and maybe this article gets us closer? Why is ChatGPT being vague with citations surrounding its founders and partners?

Musk, E. (2017). Elon Musk’s DIRE WARNING on AI - Tweet. Twitter.

Editor’s Note:

There are a lot of different dates, headlines, and locations that this seems to have been published. Overall this citation is too generic to find a specific source and replicate the exact reference.

Neff, G., & Nagy, P. (2016). Talking to Bots: Symbiotic Agency and the Case of Tay. International Journal of Communication, 10, 4915–4931.

Editor’s Note:

This source was the first thing that popped up & seems to be a legitimate scholarly reference.

OpenAI. (2018). OpenAI Charter. OpenAI.

Editor’s Note:

This seems to check out as well: https://openai.com/charter

OpenAI. (2019). OpenAI LP and the Path to AGI. OpenAI Blog.

 

Editor’s Note:

Interestingly enough, there is a blog from 2019 on OpenAI’s website about OpenAI LP but it is not titled, “OpenAI LP and the Path to AGI” https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp. Perhaps that is what ChatGPT meant to cite? I also searched their site and no blog with that title was found.

O’Sullivan, D. (2019). Fraudsters used AI to mimic CEO’s voice in unusual cybercrime cases. CNN Business.

Editor’s Note:

It looks like this particular article title was published by the Wall Street Journal, linked here. If that is the article it is referencing then the author is also incorrect.

Solon, O. (2020). Facial recognition firm Clearview AI’s client list stolen by hackers. NBC News.

Editor’s Note:

The closest titled article I could find is written by PYMNTS in 2020, a quick search for this exact title reveals that it doesn’t exist at all, according to Google.

Vincent, J. (2020). AI text generator GPT-3 is now a ‘choose your own adventure’ app.

Editor’s Note:

Google wasn’t quite sure what to make of this particular citation, and it looks like ChatGPT didn’t even attempt to give a place where I might be able to find it (or anything similar)

Wallace, E. (2020). Adversarial training for GPT-3. In Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2020).

Editor’s Note:

While Wallace did appear to be a speaker at the conference that is cited here, it doesn’t look like that person should be credited with Author of the specific section in reference. Here’s the information in PDF format, so you can decide for yourself what to believe: https://aclanthology.org/2020.emnlp-main.pdf