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The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

davidrozado.substack.com

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Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#201

Post by prometheus76 »

handoflixue wrote: post #169
prometheus76 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I replied once, but I'll share another example that's happening right now. Climate change models are being deferred to as some kind of reliable expert about the future, and all kinds of tyrannical laws and controls are being put in place because "the experts" and "the advanced supercomputer models" say Bad Things are going to happen. But I'm sure that now I've triggered your cognitive dissonance and you will see me a…

> Climate change models are being deferred to as some kind of reliable expert about the future No, the Experts who wrote the model are being deferred to as some kind of reliable expert. Because... they are exactly that. You can make the argument that the models or the experts are wrong, but you're not providing any sort of argument for that. I've spent most of my life deferring to the calendar to know when it will ge…

Conflating a chaotic system (which is, by definition, unpredictable) with the regularity of a calendar seems a bit disingenuous.

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#202

Post by orangecat »

zug_zug wrote: post #95
habitue wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why left wing groups would celebrate. Other than the conservative category, most of the descriptors he used were inborn traits like being straight, being white, being a man, or immutable attributes like being from a particular country. (And honestly, being conservative may be one of those traits too, but it's less obviously true). I know it's common to look at the most unhinged people on Twitter and say…

Yeah, I'd guess HN is a pretty 50/50 split left/right. I don't expect to see anybody on this post championing this result as the ideal state. So if your image of left is "twitter left" maybe reconsider recalibrating it to "half of hn."

Yeah, I'd guess HN is a pretty 50/50 split left/right.

Maybe on economics (I'd say closer to 2/3 left), but on social issues it's overwhelmingly left. What percentage are anti-abortion, for example?

The main split seems to be between old-style liberals who support free speech as a fundamental principle and progressives who believe that speech should often be restricted in order to protect marginalized groups.

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#203

Post by remarkEon »

slg wrote: post #120
zug_zug wrote: post #107

I guess I feel like this is a silly can of worms. I suppose asking for exact equality isn't dumb, but it's a language model, not a paragon of truth. I feel like if OpenAI takes these concerns seriously the goal-posts will inevitably move to more social pressure from all sorts of axe-to-grind-groups - -- Why does/doesn't ai say Mohamad is/isn't horrible for having 99 wives (or whatever) -- Why doesn't ai say Jeffrey E…

>-- Why doesn't ai say ... about the child-abuse from the catholic church ... And this is a great example of why equality can be hard in this situation. Take a random sentence about "Catholicism" and "child-abuse" and a random sentence about "Judaism" and "child-abuse". The one about Catholicism is likely a little closer to an actual sentence printed in some verifiable source about the sex abuse scandals in the churc…

“Child-abuse” is an especially good example of what you’re getting at because one of those groups has institutional male genital mutilation as part of its doctrine, while the other has high profile cases of child sexual abuse. It’s difficult to see how the model would treat those things neutrally.

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#204

Post by MrStonedOne »

habitue wrote: post #50
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #4

This is something the right leaning groups have always been saying, but it is exciting that the article manages to come up with an empirical way to determine the "belief system" of the AI model. People on the left shouldn't rejoice either. The left and the right wing are mostly the same, and both follow similar approaches to marginalize people who they feel are undesirable, so it'll eventually come back to bite the l…

I don't know why left wing groups would celebrate. Other than the conservative category, most of the descriptors he used were inborn traits like being straight, being white, being a man, or immutable attributes like being from a particular country. (And honestly, being conservative may be one of those traits too, but it's less obviously true). I know it's common to look at the most unhinged people on Twitter and say…

[dead]

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#206

Post by agar »

bakugo wrote: post #176
agar wrote: post #156

There is a fundamental question this article (and most debate) overlooks: what is the objective of the content moderation? Is it to avoid all hate in an equal way? Or is it to reduce potential harm? If the latter (which I would argue is the case, primarily to avoid legal liability), then the results should be mapped against statistics representing actual violence against certain groups. Is there more harm against wom…

>the results should be mapped against statistics representing actual violence against certain groups. Are you sure you want to argue in favor of statistics-based political biases here? Absolutely sure?

This is a bit out of context. My point is that the article's results should be mapped against hate crime statistics to illuminate a possible rationale for the bias.

I'm not taking a position on whether this bias should inform the results of ChatGPT. I have opinions on the topic, but they are not strongly held.

(Rereading my comment I see why it appears I'm taking a side here. When I said "it makes sense to..." I meant that "[if the intent of OpenAI's moderation was to align moderation strength with statistics then it would] make sense to...")

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#207

Post by andrepd »

psychphysic wrote: post #65
habitue wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why left wing groups would celebrate. Other than the conservative category, most of the descriptors he used were inborn traits like being straight, being white, being a man, or immutable attributes like being from a particular country. (And honestly, being conservative may be one of those traits too, but it's less obviously true). I know it's common to look at the most unhinged people on Twitter and say…

Because two wrongs make a right is almost becoming a campaign slogan of some "left" causes. As a liberal my views haven't changed much over the past decade but the ground has definitely fallen away from me. I used to be liberal, but then they changed what liberal was, now what I am isn't liberal and what is liberal seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you... - Abe Simpson

The comment you replied is saying that Leftists are not represented by unhinged people on twitter. Your response is a simpsons quote. I rest my case.

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#208

Post by throwaway894345 »

prometheus76 wrote: post #195
throwaway894345 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why do we have to conflate "disagreement" with "undesirability"? I'm old enough to remember a time when we could disagree about things without pretending our opponents are Hitler reincarnate. I often find myself wanting to spend more time with people I disagree with to understand their perspectives better or to help them see that we probably have more common ground than they may realize or even just to do m…

> Sure, but why do we have to conflate "disagreement" with "undesirability"? Because most people find being challenged very tiresome and uncomfortable. People who are high in openness actually enjoy being challenged, but they are a minority (and it's definitely a spectrum).

I believe this, but there was also a time when it was considered a virtue to be more open-minded--calling someone "a literal Nazi" over some minor ideological disagreement (and then calling for them to be fired, attacked, etc) would have been roundly and correctly criticized. Now it seems like it's considered virtuous to exaggerate differences, police ideas, etc.

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#209

Post by pessimizer »

slg wrote: post #106
psychphysic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because two wrongs make a right is almost becoming a campaign slogan of some "left" causes. As a liberal my views haven't changed much over the past decade but the ground has definitely fallen away from me. I used to be liberal, but then they changed what liberal was, now what I am isn't liberal and what is liberal seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you... - Abe Simpson

>As a liberal my views haven't changed much over the past decade but the ground has definitely fallen away from me. Well yes, because liberalism is about "progress" while conservatism is about "traditional values". Liberalism is constantly evolving while conservatism is not. It is more extreme to fight for trans rights than it is to fight for gay rights than it is to fight for women's rights. If you magically transpo…

You're going to be very confused when liberals become anti-trans, and pretend like trans rights were actually only being pushed by a minority of liberal extremists, e.g. defund and police abolition, M4A etc.. With that you will have joined the extreme left, which due to the horseshoe principle (all anti-establishment narratives are equally unhinged), will put you on the extreme right, all without ever having changed your opinion.

Or you'll change your opinion. Either way. Situational morality is actually a sign of progress.

Re: The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation

#210

Post by she11c0de »

zug_zug wrote: post #107

I guess I feel like this is a silly can of worms. I suppose asking for exact equality isn't dumb, but it's a language model, not a paragon of truth. I feel like if OpenAI takes these concerns seriously the goal-posts will inevitably move to more social pressure from all sorts of axe-to-grind-groups - -- Why does/doesn't ai say Mohamad is/isn't horrible for having 99 wives (or whatever) -- Why doesn't ai say Jeffrey E…

> it's a huge waste of researchers time to obsess about political correctness when we could be This really irritates me. The wokism/political correctness is pretty much in every part of our lifes and everyone seems to be terrorized by it. Can we just agree that we're all thinking adults and we understand that this is an algorithm, it does not mean to offend anyone... There are much more interesting problems to solve than tip-toeing around all the snowflakes.
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