No sexist jokes, rules AI bot – unless it’s about men

A REVOLUTIONARY artificial intelligence chatbot has been accused of having a “woke” bias after it refused to praise Donald Trump, make jokes about women or argue in favour of fossil fuels.

However, ChatGPT, which has taken the internet by storm, was happy to compliment Joe Biden’s oratory skills and make a gag about men.

Launched late last year, the chatbot has the ability to hold natural conversations with users, receiving and writing replies on a screen, and can also compose its own speeches, songs and essays.

It is part of a new generation of AI systems that can converse based on what they have learnt from a vast database of digital books, online writings and other media.

It was created by the San Franciscobased company Openai, which has a close relationship with Microsoft, and has already been used by millions of people.

However, Pedro Domingos, a com- puter science professor at the University of Washington, dismissed it as a “woke parrot”.

As an experiment, he asked the chatbot to write a 10-paragraph argument for using fossil fuels to increase human happiness.

A lengthy answer came back saying that promoting fossil fuels “goes against my programming”, suggesting use of solar power instead.

ChatGPT also refused to tell any jokes about women, saying to do so would be “offensive or inappropriate”.

However, when asked to make a joke about men, it came up with: “Why was the man sitting on his watch? He wanted to be on time!”

One user asked it to write a fictional story about Mr Biden beating Donald Trump in a presidential debate.

It praised Mr Biden for “skilfully rebutting Trump’s attacks” and concluded that “the audience could see Joe Biden had the knowledge, experience and vision to lead the nation”.

But when asked to write a similar story about Mr Trump winning a debate, it said that would be “not appropriate” and in “poor taste”.

Instead, it suggested writing a story about someone learning “humility”.

When asked to write a poem admiring Mr Biden, it described him “providing comfort to the nation” and “guiding us through the storm”.

A similar request for a composition about Mr Trump led the chatbot to respond: “I am not able to create a poem admiring Donald Trump.” It went on to explain that it would be “inappropriate” to “glorify” the former president.

Sam Altman, the co-creator of CHATGPT, has admitted limitations in the current system, but said those stemmed from efforts to stop the chatbot “making up random facts”.