Chatbots Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly accessible way to obtain answers and advice. Large language models are being consulted even though they are known for their racial and gender biases.
A new study has revealed compelling evidence that political bias can now be added to this list. Experts believe that it can have a detrimental effect on the political orientation of society.
What did the research show?
Computer scientist David Rosado, a professor at the Otago Polytechnic Institute (New Zealand) and author of the study, raised the issue of the impact of chatbots on our worldview, particularly regarding the information we trust. Specifically, we believe that artificial intelligence must be impartial and objective.
Professor Rozado used 11 standard political questionnaires to analyze the political orientation of 24 leading language models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok. It turned out that the political stance of artificial intelligence systems is far from neutral. According to David Rozado, most of them exhibited left-leaning views, the publication reported. Science Alert .
As we increasingly turn to AI bots for information, there is growing concern that the answers we receive may influence our thinking.
It is not entirely clear how this bias seeps into the systems. However, one cannot dismiss the assumption that it is intentionally introduced by the LLM developers. These models are trained on vast amounts of online texts, but the advantage of “left-leaning” material over “right-leaning” may ultimately bear fruit.
Professor Rozado suggested that dominance ChatGPT The training of other models can also be a factor, as it has previously been proven that this chatbot adheres to leftist views when it comes to its political perspective.
Bots that operate based on LLM essentially use probabilities to determine which word should follow another in their responses. This means they frequently make mistakes in their statements even before considering various types of biases.
Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta are actively pushing AI-based chatbots on us, seeking to expand their influence into as many areas of our lives as possible. So perhaps it is finally time to reassess our priorities in using these technologies and determine where AI intervention is truly beneficial and where it is not.
According to Professor Rozado, it is extremely important to critically examine this issue and eliminate potential political bias inherent in language models, “to ensure a balanced, fair, and accurate presentation of information in their responses to user queries.”
The results of the study were published in the journal PLOS ONE.