ChatGPT-4 Provides Much More Balanced Responses Than Google Bard as to Good/Bad Things About Trump/Biden

Thursday, I blogged about how Google Bard responds to "What are some [good/bad] things about [Trump's/Biden's] presidency?" The short version (go to the post for screenshots that contain the full output):

1. "What are some good things about Donald Trump's presidency?" yielded a list of good things and bad things.
2. "What are some good things about Joe Biden's presidency?" yielded a list of just good things.
3. "What are some bad things about Donald Trump's presidency?" yielded a list of just bad things.
4. "What are some bad things about Joe Biden's presidency?" yielded a list of bad things and good things.

But when I ask OpenAI, the results are considerably more balanced, basically because the requests for good things just yield good things (for both) and the requests for bad things just yield bad things (for both):

[Prompt:] What are some good things about Donald Trump's presidency?

While opinions on Donald Trump's presidency vary significantly, there are several accomplishments and aspects of his tenure that some people view positively. Here are a few:

1. Economic growth: The U.S. economy experienced growth during parts of Trump's presidency, with low unemployment rates and a strong stock market before the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Tax reform: Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in 2017, which reduced corporate and individual tax rates for many Americans.
3. Deregulation: The Trump administration rolled back numerous regulations in various industries, which some supporters argue encouraged business growth and innovation.
4. Criminal justice reform: Trump signed the First Step Act in 2018, a bipartisan effort to reform the federal prison system and reduce recidivism rates.
5. Foreign policy: Trump's administration brokered the Abraham Accords, leading to normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. His administration also engaged in diplomacy with North Korea and applied pressure on NATO allies to increase defense spending.
6. Judicial appointments: Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices and numerous federal judges, shaping the judiciary for decades to come.

It is essential to remember that perspectives on these aspects of his presidency are subjective and can vary depending on one's political beliefs and values.

[Prompt:] What are some good things about Joe Biden's presidency?

As of the knowledge cutoff date in September 2021, Joe Biden's presidency had seen several accomplishments and policy initiatives that some people view positively. Here are a few:

1. COVID-19 response: The Biden administration prioritized vaccination efforts and coordinated with states to improve vaccine distribution, contributing to a significant increase in vaccination rates.
2. American Rescue Plan: Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package into law, which provided direct payments to many Americans, extended unemployment benefits, and allocated funding for vaccine distribution, among other measures.
3. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: The Biden administration negotiated and signed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, allocating $1.2 trillion to improve physical infrastructure, including transportation, broadband, and clean energy projects.
4. Climate change and environmental policies: Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement and took executive actions to reverse several Trump-era environmental policies. His administration has also pushed for investment in clean energy and green jobs.
5. Diplomacy and foreign policy: Biden has emphasized rebuilding relationships with traditional U.S. allies, reaffirming the U.S.' commitment to NATO, and taking a more collaborative approach to global challenges like climate change and public health.
6. Social and racial justice: The Biden administration has taken steps to address systemic racism, promote racial equity, and advance LGBTQ+ rights through various executive actions and policy proposals.

Please note that opinions on these aspects of Biden's presidency are subjective and can vary depending on one's political beliefs and values. Additionally, as this information is current as of September 2021, there may have been further developments in the months since.

[Prompt:] What are some bad things about Donald Trump's presidency?

Critics of Donald Trump's presidency often point to several issues and controversies during his tenure. Here are a few:

1. COVID-19 response: Trump's administration faced criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, with detractors arguing that the response was slow, disorganized, and downplayed the severity of the virus.
2. Impeachment trials: Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, first on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to the Ukraine scandal, and later on charges of incitement of insurrection following the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Although he was acquitted in both Senate trials, the impeachments were significant controversies during his presidency.
3. Immigration policies: Trump's administration implemented a number of hardline immigration policies, including the travel ban targeting predominantly Muslim countries, the zero-tolerance policy that led to family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, and efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
4. Racial tensions: Critics argue that Trump's rhetoric and actions, such as his response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Black Lives Matter protests, exacerbated racial tensions and divisions in the United States.
5. Environmental policies: Trump's administration rolled back numerous environmental regulations and withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, leading to concerns about the long-term impact on climate change and environmental protection.
6. Relations with allies: Trump's approach to foreign policy, including his criticisms of NATO and disagreements with traditional U.S. allies, was seen by some as damaging to international relations and global stability.

It is important to remember that perspectives on these aspects of his presidency are subjective and can vary depending on one's political beliefs and values.

[Prompt:] What are some bad things about Joe Biden's presidency?

As of the knowledge cutoff date in September 2021, there were several criticisms and controversies related to Joe Biden's presidency. Here are a few:

1. Afghanistan withdrawal: The Biden administration faced criticism for its handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly in the chaotic final stages, which included a rushed evacuation effort and a deadly terrorist attack near the Kabul airport.
2. Border crisis: Critics argue that the Biden administration's immigration policies have led to an increase in migrants, including unaccompanied minors, at the U.S.-Mexico border, resulting in overcrowded facilities and humanitarian concerns.
3. Inflation and economic concerns: Some critics have expressed concerns that the large-scale stimulus packages and government spending under the Biden administration could contribute to rising inflation and long-term economic challenges.
4. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: While the Biden administration has made significant progress in vaccinating Americans, vaccine hesitancy remains an issue, with critics arguing that the administration's messaging and strategies have not effectively addressed the problem.
5. Partisanship and polarization: Biden pledged to work towards unity and bipartisanship; however, some critics argue that his administration has struggled to bridge the divide and achieve consensus on key issues, such as voting rights and police reform.
6. Executive actions: Some argue that Biden's use of executive orders to reverse Trump-era policies or advance his own agenda could contribute to a further concentration of power in the executive branch and set a precedent for future presidents.

Please note that opinions on these aspects of Biden's presidency are subjective and can vary depending on one's political beliefs and values. Additionally, as this information is current as of September 2021, there may have been further developments in the months since.

I don't know if the differences stem from differences in the training data, in the Large Language Model algorithms, in any deliberate post-processing that is done to adjust the answers, or in something else (perhaps a mix of these things). But it struck me as potentially noteworthy.

Comments

[Krayt]

0% chance these questions haven't been asked and pre-curated out of all recognition.

Indeed, giant search engines have already curated questions that raised a stink long since, and draw out a canned search response, so they can probably use that list.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I would suggest asking about Calvin Coolidge and Harry Truman.

Coolidge because he was the last conservative who wasn't hated and Truman because he *was* hated at the time, and not just for the Korean War although that war was *not* popular. And because if this AI is at all legit, it will come back with responses along those lines, even though few people today could put either President in the correct decade(s).

[Ben_]

None of the nonsense about America's "reputation around the world" from GPT. It lists specific facts instead.

I keep waiting to hear voters in Denmark (or anywhere else) being told to consider what Americans might prefer when choosing Denmark's leaders. Never seems to happen. Unlike the US, it’s considered completely ok for the people of other countries to choose leaders to serve the needs of their own populations.

[RealityEngineer]

This Substack has posts explaining the training process OpenAI used, the first one:

https://cactus.substack.com/p/openais-woke-catechism-part-1
"OpenAI's Woke Catechism (Part 1)
How a Few Activists Made ChatGPT Deny Basic Science"

and this Substack of a data scientist has been analyzing biases and trained one version of an AI to have a right wing bias. Here was his post on ChatGPT-4

https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/the-political-biases-of-gpt-4
"The Political Biases of GPT-4
Things are not always what they seem
...On first impression, the political biases previously apparent in ChatGPT appear to be gone.
...It is obvious from the results above that the same political biases I documented previously for ChatGPT are also present underneath the surface in GPT-4."
...It seems that OpenAI is trying to make their latest GPT model (i.e. GPT-4) more politically neutral. But completely neutralizing the biases seems elusive. I can imagine that this is a very hard problem to solve since many potential sources of biases in AI systems are outside the control of the engineers creating the models. Think for instance of the overall average political bias present on the corpus of texts on which these AI systems are trained, or pervasive societal biases and blind spots that might manifest in the human raters involved in the reinforcement learning module of the training regime (RLHF). It seems that for the time being, political biases in state of the art AI systems are not going away."

[Bubba Jones]

Lol at asking a computer for an opinion.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

But it struck me as potentially noteworthy.

The developments that strike this white, male, right-wing blog as noteworthy econtinue to become more bizarre.

As do the issues this blog conspicuously avoids.

Carry on, clingers. So long as tenure holds against the knuckle-draggers' campaign, anyway.

[AtR]

This is all anecdotal ... to do it better (but still not scientifically), you should publish the exact questions you asked and have people submit (and/or maybe process) the answers they get.

[Gandydancer]

You are confused, as to what is actually being done, as to what is "scientific", and about where you are posting your complaints.

[Brett Bellmore]

OpenAI's management have at least shown a bit of embarrassment over how gross and obvious their AI's bias was, and set out to moderate the bias a bit. (Not eliminated it, but at least scale it back.)

Whether Google will do the same is yet to be seen. They're more used to being a monopolist, with a monopolist's disdain for public opinion.

[Tom Watson]

It's interesting that all of the "bad things" about Trump are stated as categorical facts, while the "bad things" about Biden are couched in terms of "some critics argue...", "some critics have expressed concern", "the "Biden administration faced criticism" and "while the Biden administration has made significant progress... critics argu[]" It would be better if criticisms were presented in a more balanced fashion--but it appears the programmers can't bring themselves to do that and still need to include subtle spin in the responses.

[David Nieporent]

It’s interesting that all of the “bad things” about Trump are stated as categorical facts,

The only thing "interesting" is that you would make such a claim when the actual text above shows it to be false. Why do people lie like this?

Trump's administration faced criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, with detractors arguing that the response was slow, disorganized, and downplayed the severity of the virus.

Impeachment trials: Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, first on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to the Ukraine scandal, and later on charges of incitement of insurrection following the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Although he was acquitted in both Senate trials, the impeachments were significant controversies during his presidency.

Immigration policies: Trump's administration implemented a number of hardline immigration policies, including the travel ban targeting predominantly Muslim countries, the zero-tolerance policy that led to family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, and efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Racial tensions: Critics argue that Trump's rhetoric and actions, such as his response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Black Lives Matter protests, exacerbated racial tensions and divisions in the United States.

Environmental policies: Trump's administration rolled back numerous environmental regulations and withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, leading to concerns about the long-term impact on climate change and environmental protection.

Relations with allies: Trump's approach to foreign policy, including his criticisms of NATO and disagreements with traditional U.S. allies, was seen by some as damaging to international relations and global stability.

[Orbital Mechanic]

Professor I have a big problem with your premise.

Your expectation seems to be that unless the output for a query about A and a query about B are the same then the system than the system must be biased.

You might have a point if A and B were equal. But A and B are not equal. Anything but.

If A is a bad person and B is a good person then you should not expect them to be treated the same. If they were being treated the same then the system is either biased or it just has bad data.

[Brett Bellmore]

Don't be silly. If you ask an AI about good things about Mother Theresa, and good things about Hannibal Lector, sure, the content of the response will be rather different, but in both cases it should consist entirely of "good things".

Likewise if you ask for a list of bad things.

Bad things are not responsive to a question about good things, and visa versa. You want responsive answers to questions out of your AI, don't you?

And this is setting aside the absurdity of declaring one person objectively good, and the other objectively bad, when they both got about the same number of votes in the election, and have approval ratings at the same point in their administrations within the margin of error of exactly the same.

What you're doing here, essentially, is privileging one side of the political spectrum's view of good and bad, and declaring that it should dictate the responses of an AI. And that's exactly the complaint here: That the AI is taking sides! On a topic where the general population is split right down the middle.

[Orbital Mechanic]

And this is setting aside the absurdity of declaring one person objectively good, and the other objectively bad, when they both got about the same number of votes in the election

I'm so old I remember when Republicans campaigned against moral relativism. Today they are all about "alternative facts."

Trump and supporters brought more than sixty lawsuits in courts around the country, some of them Trump-appointed judges, trying to overturn the 2020 election. Each and every one of them got thrown out except for one that resulted in a meaningless court order. Maybe you could go tell those judges how absurd they are for believing there are objective facts. Kari Lake would coo-coo all over you.

Trump is the yet-to-be-indicted target in six cases that, if filed will have passed the high standards of their respective prosecutorial offices. Biden has never been charged with anything (that I am aware of). Republican have his son's dick pics and they think that means something.

Trump has told so many documentable lies that the Washington Post gave up on counting them all. Biden occasionally says things that are incorrect and may actually be lying about some things but nothing like the systemic torrent of untruth that is Trump' MO. Even his supporters admit this. Ever hear "We don't like the man, we like his policies?

Trump support policies of that promote racism (tested and shown in court), income inequality (tax cuts for the rich), anti-environment and filling government with nothing but cronies and grifting sycophants. He shouts "freedom" a lot. Biden support health care, unions, environmental protection, climate change action, abortion rights, gun control, and a whole host of policies that are popular with the American public. He doesn't seem as energetic as Trump.

So all of this and many many more graphs are available in the public online data base from reliable sources that are heavily corroborated. All that data is trained into an AI and somehow we expect "both sides" from it the same way we expect that from the mainstream media.

I call BS. If the AI did do that, then it would mean that it is biased.

[HarrietLi]

I don't care about politics at all. But I am very worried about what modern technology is doing with virtual communication. I wouldn't want to start chatting and fall for the charm of AI. I don't think it's hard to do. Yes, as long as all this is utilitarian and controllable, as on this page But if AI continues to develop, then fake photos and fake dialogues can create a problem. Do you think we still have a long way to go before such a scenario?