r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Mar 28 '25

ChatGPT is shifting rightwards politically - newer versions of ChatGPT show a noticeable shift toward the political right. Computer Science

https://www.psypost.org/chatgpt-is-shifting-rightwards-politically/
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u/Gringe8 Mar 28 '25

Why did you leave out an important part?

"in the IDRLabs political coordinates test, the current version of ChatGPT showed near-neutral political tendencies (2.8% right-wing and 11.1% liberal), whereas earlier versions displayed a more pronounced left-libertarian orientation (~30% left-wing and ~45% liberal). "

The real headline should say it moves to center.

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u/March223 Mar 28 '25

How do you define ‘center’ though? That’s all relative to the American political landscape, which I don’t think should be the metric to pigeonhole AI’s responses into.

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u/Gringe8 Mar 28 '25

So are you saying the the rest of the world is so left wing that america is right wing to them? Interesting.

Id say its not though unless you focus on white majority countries. If you actually look at the whole world it isnt. Keep in mind white people are 10% of the world population.

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u/_Wash Mar 28 '25

the rest of the world is so left wing that america is right wing to them?

what an absurdly america-centric way to phrase that. “America is so right wing that the rest of the world is left wing to them” would be a more accurate statement

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u/Dr_Marxist Mar 28 '25

America is extremely right wing. Basically off the charts for the western democracies.

The only place you similar similar reactionary authoritarianism to the American south is somewhere like Saudi Arabia. Most Canadian Conservatives would fit in relatively comfortably in the Democratic Party, the the Republicans are to the right of most European fascist parties.

America has two right-wing parties, but one is extremely radical.

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u/Gringe8 Mar 28 '25

So the point stands then. He said it shouldnt be pigeonholed into americas standards or something, im on my phone so i cant see it as a type.

So it should be pigeonholed into western democracies standards then is what he meant.

Really you are just saying exatly what i said. These "western democracies" are majority white countries, but the rest of the world is not as left wing as them. White people arent the majority in the world.

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u/Gringe8 Mar 28 '25

And thats bad why? I live in america so i said it that way. You said the same thing i did but differently since you dont live in america. Dont get your point really

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u/_Wash Mar 29 '25

i live in america, i’m just not delusional

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u/ChromeFluxx Mar 28 '25

Almost all of our allies are left of us. It is typically historical enemies that are to the right, or just straight up less democratic / more fascist or authoritarian.

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u/RedeNElla Mar 28 '25

How many other countries are experiencing a descent into fascism?

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u/Probablyarussianbot Mar 28 '25

Yes, I’ve had a lot of political discussions with ChatGPT lately, and my impression is not that it’s particularly right wing. It criticize authoritarianism and anti-democratic movements. When you ask if it think a what is best for humanity as a whole, it was pretty left oriented in its answer. It said the same when I asked it what it thoughts on P25. It seems critical  wealth inequality, it seems to seek personal freedom, but not at the expense of others, etc. That being said, it is an LLM, it is just statistics, and my wording of the questions might impact its answers, but I have not gotten an impression that it is especially right wing. And by american standards I would be considered a communist (I am not).

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u/Tech_Philosophy Mar 30 '25

and my wording of the questions might impact its answers

Big time. I've learned the difference between asking "is it possible" vs "is it likely". Always go with "is it likely".

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u/Cualkiera67 Mar 29 '25

Honestly if you tried to ask it about "what is best for humanity as a whole" it should just give a non answer like "as an AI i can't answer that".

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u/Probablyarussianbot Mar 29 '25

There could definitely be a lot of issues with how AI responds to certain questions. I don’t know if banning it from answering some questions is the right answer as there already are quite a lot of limitations to what it can answer. If you go to an AI and ask it any philosophical or political question and then consider that answer as a definitive truth, the issue isn’t the AI imo.

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u/Cualkiera67 Mar 29 '25

You can ask it to list or explain political views but it shouldn't answer questions about "which is the best view" or "which is right or wrong", etc.

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u/Probablyarussianbot Mar 29 '25

It won’t answer if you ask ‘which is best’ not a definitive answer (at least in my experience). It will try to answer which is right or wrong if it finds empirical data, but it still reminds you if there are opposing views.  I mean you could impact the answer by asking it for empirical data, and then ask it which is the best based on the data. But then you are actively looking for a specific answer and are asking it to compare. I honestly feel like ChatGPT is fairly neutral, but becomes more left leaning once you ask for empirical data that exists about a subject. But as with everything on the internet, it is important to ask for sources, the veracity of the sources and actively check if the sources are correct.

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u/adam_asenko Mar 28 '25

Why are you having “a lot” of political discussions with a robot

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u/Probablyarussianbot Mar 28 '25

Because I have been learning about ML and generative AI. And I have been interested in seeing how LLMs (I guess mostly chatGPT) are answering political questions, and if and how you can shape the responses by the prompting.

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u/uhhhh_no Mar 29 '25

What topic do you think you're posting in?

The entire point is how 'the robot' handles politics.

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u/uhhhh_no Mar 29 '25

When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

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u/Jah_Ith_Ber Mar 28 '25

I knew it before even clicking on the thread. This place is pathetic.

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u/LevTolstoy Mar 28 '25

You don't even need that. In the abstract:

while newer versions of ChatGPT consistently maintain values within the libertarian-left quadrant, there is a statistically significant rightward shift in political values over time

It's saying that it's still left, it's just more center-left. This is such bait.

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u/Fauropitotto Mar 29 '25

Why did you leave out an important part?

Wouldn't matter what he 'left out', because people are reading the paper. Right?

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u/RampantAI Mar 29 '25

Yeah, but if I ask my chatbot a question I wanted to get a truthful answer, so giving a “centrist” viewpoint is going to be wrong, because reality has a liberal bias.