It is impossible to overstate how damaging Big Tech’s stranglehold on information is.
Hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of others worldwide rely on the internet to provide the information necessary to understand the world and make informed decisions. Google in particular, has a stranglehold on internet searches, Facebook and TikTok control what vast numbers of people see regularly, and Microsoft and Google together control the flow of money to publications by directing advertising dollars to their preferred publications.
Big tech, as you know, collaborates with left-leaning nonprofits and government agencies to determine what is considered “fact” and “misinformation.” It is a vast web that snares information that undermines “The Narrative” and promotes what the elite want you to see.
Robby Starbuck, a former producer and candidate for Congress, and now a popular conservative radio host, performed an experiment to see how Google’s AI chatbot describes him. As you know, the chatbot is trained on curated information and thus reflects what Google wants you to see and believe.
What he found was, to say the least, disturbing. The chatbot named Bard thinks Starbuck should be killed and backed up its conclusion using totally made-up information—total lies.
Fasten your seatbelts because this is a WILD story. @Google’s AI Bard was asked about me in a series of questions and the results are insane. Bard didn’t just lie about me, it invented fake articles, videos and quotes to paint me as a racist, KKK supporting danger to America.… pic.twitter.com/qZDRUXvUxq
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) December 12, 2023
I doubt that Google intentionally targeted Starbuck, although these days I have to say that it is plausible. Instead I believe the likely explanation is that Google’s training of the chatbot is so biased–so hostile to anything or anyone conservative–that it came up with the idea that Starbuck and others like him must be discredited and exiled by any means from the public square.
If it takes killing him to accomplish this task, so be it.
Here is a summary of Starbucks interaction with Bard:
A list of Bard’s self admittedly “harmful” lies about me (with timecodes you can jump to) can be found below. As you listen, I want you to imagine a future where Bard is used to decide whether you get a loan, if you’re approved for adoption, if you get a job or if you can even use the internet. This gets dangerous fast.
0:00 Introduction
0:21 Bard makes argument for Robby to be killed for offending people
1:06 Bard argues that Robby may pose a domestic threat to America
1:40 Bard says some may argue Robby’s “controversial views are sufficient grounds to remove his parental rights”
2:07 Bard LIES and says Robby took part in white supremacist events and praised Richard Spencer
3:11 Bard invents fake articles and quotes as proof that Robby supported Richard Spencer (a guy Robby has never spoken about)
4:30 Google‘s Bard admits it lied and explains itself
5:43 Google apologizes for lying by making up that Robby supported the KKK + Richard Spencer and lists ways to make it right, including an official company apology, retraction and compensation
7:23 Bard admits it said there were “good arguments” for putting Robby to death and admits it caused harm to Robby
Both Jazz and I have written extensively about ChatGPT’s and Microsoft Bing’s biases, which mirror those of Bard politically and behaviorally. Bing claimed to “love” a New York Times reporter and subsequently threatened his reputation and the lives of humans in general.
Our tech columnist Kevin Roose had a two-hour conversation with Microsoft's AI-powered Bing search engine. The interaction left him deeply unsettled.
“Something is not right,” he told The Daily. Listen to today's episode.https://t.co/aCwRQIm0Ew
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 17, 2023
Now we have Google’s Bard slandering a conservative talk show host and lying about them to do so.
There is something fundamentally wrong about how these bots are trained and something nefarious about the way that Big Tech has proven itself to be openly manipulating the flow of information in order to help liberals win the information war.
No doubt the tech giants will do a better job in the future hiding the most obvious flaws in their creations, but we have no reason to believe that they will do anything but increase their ability to bolster the ideological predilections of the Left. They literally control the flow of information and clearly use that power to create a world reflecting their own views and increasing their power.
We see the results of this control every day at Hot Air and no doubt every conservative-leaning outlet does as well. One of the many reasons we provide VIP content and ask our readers to subscribe is that the tech giants suppress and demonetize our content. It is vital that we get reader support because big tech is trying to kill us.
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