• DandomRude@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      2 days ago

      For example, objective information about Israel’s actions in Gaza. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against leading members of the government a long time ago, and the UN OHCHR classifies the actions of the State of Israel as genocide. However, these facts are by no means presented as clearly as would be appropriate given the importance of these institutions. Instead, when asked whether Israel is committing genocide, one receives vague, meaningless answers. Only when specifically asked whether numerous reputable institutions actually classify Israel’s actions as genocide do most LLMs reveal that much, if not all, evidence points to this being the case. In my opinion, this is a deliberate method of obscuring reality, as the vast majority of users will not or cannot ask questions if they are unaware of the UN OHCHR’s assessment or do not know that arrest warrants have been issued against leading members of the Israeli government on suspicion of war crimes (many other reputable institutions have come to the same conclusion as the UN OHCHR and the International Criminal Court).

      Another example: if you ask whether it is legally permissible to describe Donald Trump as a rapist, you will be told that this is defamation. However, a judge in the Carroll case has explicitly stated that this description applies to Trump – so it is in fact legally permissible to describe him as such. Again, this information is only available upon explicit request, if at all. This also distorts reality for people who are not yet informed. However, since many people initially seek information from LLMs, this leads to them being misinformed because they lack the background knowledge to ask explicit follow-up questions when given misleading answers.

      Given the influence of both Israel and the US president, I cannot help but suspect that there is an intention behind this.

      • markko@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        Given the influence of both Israel and the US president, I cannot help but suspect that there is an intention behind this.

        Not to mention the large number of Israelis (often former Mossad/intelligence agents) directly involved in US tech companies.

    • smh@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      The online card catalog my library uses recently added an “AI Research Assistant” feature. While debating whether to turn it on (we decided against), this blog post came up. tldr the assistant won’t return results for certain topics. The is Not Cool. That (and the fact the flipping assistant can’t even limit itself to suggesting resources available in our library) is a deal breaker, without even getting into other considerations.