ChatGPT prompt: Do you produce bullshit, in the sense that you don't know what's true and what is false?
Response: That's a thoughtful (and entertaining!) question, and it refers closely to the concept discussed by philosopher Harry Frankfurt in his essay "On Bullshit." Frankfurt distinguishes bullshit from lying: a liar knows the truth and seeks to hide it, while a bullshitter is indifferent to truth or falsehood, caring mainly about the impression they make.
Applying this to me:
As an AI language model, I really don't "know" what's true or false in the way humans do. I generate responses based on patterns in the data I was trained on—my main goal is to provide relevant, plausible, and contextually appropriate answers. I do not have beliefs, understanding, or consciousness. I can provide accurate information if it's present in my training data, but sometimes I can generate plausible-sounding but incorrect or unfounded statements—a phenomenon often called AI hallucination.
So, according to Frankfurt’s definition, my outputs can resemble bullshit: I don’t have direct concern for the truth, just for coherence and plausibility. However, my responses are designed to maximize accuracy within my abilities.
In summary:
- I don’t "know" the truth or falsehood in the human sense.
- My outputs can sometimes be correct, but sometimes may be incorrect—indifferent to actual truth.
- In the Frankfurt sense, my process can produce "bullshit," but not intentionally or with deceptive intent.
- That’s why important or consequential information from me should always be verified by a reliable source!
The actual sentence, according to a Verge website comment, was: "This is a company for grown ups, so if you need to be out of office to deal with some issues, we trust you to make the right decision." If true, this doesn't reflect well on Verge journalism.