The net encyclopedia’s obvious prejudice towards right-wing politicians is influencing AI responses, analysis suggests
Wikipedia tends to painting right-wing political figures in a damaging gentle, a sample that’s feeding into AI giant language fashions (LLMs) that harvest knowledge from the web encyclopedia, a US-based conservative think-tank has claimed.
A report launched on Thursday by the Manhattan Institute checked out proof of political bias in English-language articles on Wikipedia, by correlating the names of Western leaders and distinguished politicians with emotion-laden phrases.
The examine discovered “prevailing associations of damaging feelings (e.g., anger and disgust) with right-leaning public figures; and constructive feelings (e.g., pleasure) with left-leaning public figures,” suggesting “proof of political bias embedded in Wikipedia articles.”
“We discover among the aforementioned political associations embedded in Wikipedia articles popping up in OpenAI’s language fashions,” the report concluded.
The researchers famous that Wikipedia articles are doubtless a distinguished a part of OpenAI’s “secret corpus of information” used to coach ChatGPT.
The report acknowledges, nonetheless, that this sample will not be common, and is extra widespread in articles about US political figures, whereas there was no proof of Wikipedia bias in entries on British politicians or US-based suppose tanks.
For instance, in references to current US presidents, Donald Trump – now the Republican presidential frontrunner – was portrayed with essentially the most damaging sentiment, whereas Barack Obama was listed as having essentially the most constructive references.
The report concluded that Wikipedia “will not be dwelling as much as its said neutral-point-of-view coverage.”
The coverage referred to, which Wikipedia describes as one of many pillars of the encyclopedia, stipulates that articles should exclude private opinions and interpretations of the editor, be primarily based on dependable sources, and discover a number of factors of view when coping with a controversial matter.
Wikipedia has been repeatedly criticized for its supposedly biased takes on hot-button political points, with its co-founder, Larry Sanger, saying final yr that the web site had turn out to be an instrument of “management” utilized by the US intelligence businesses to wage data warfare.
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