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9 Biggest Controversies with Chat GPT (So Far)

Artificial Intelligence has been hyped up for years on end, but progress in the field has been slow, to say the least. Enter ChatGPT, the AI game-changer that has left all previous attempts in its pixelated dust. 

With its mind-blowing ability to understand natural language and generate human-like responses, ChatGPT has given AI a much-needed jolt of energy. However, despite the many benefits that ChatGPT has brought, it has been marred by controversies. 

These controversies are a mix of misconception and genuine concern. On one hand, there are those who fear this technology largely due to misinformation or even political and financial reasons. On the other hand, there are valid concerns about the potential for bias and ethical issues in the development and use of AI technology, in our day-to-day lives.

This article will explore some of the controversies surrounding ChatGPT. We will also look into these controversies and see how they came to be. Enjoy!

1. The Ethical Implications of ChatGPT

Ethics word cloud by rdaconnect from

While new technologies are often exciting and innovative, they also raise important ethical concerns. This is particularly true for AI systems like ChatGPT, which have the potential to revolutionize everything from communication to the production of goods to entertainment.

There are numerous ethical concerns surrounding ChatGPT. Ranging from the possibility of biased or incomplete training data to questions on the transparency of what information the system is allowed to use.

However, OpenAI is in no way ignoring the severity of this issue and is taking the necessary steps to address the concerns. This is through ChatGPT’s ethical AI team which is tasked with ensuring the system is developed and deployed in a responsible and ethical manner.

2. Reproduction of Harmful Content

depiction of a cybercriminal by Azamat E on

While ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way we communicate and interact with technology, it also can reproduce harmful content. This includes everything from hate speech and misinformation to malware and phishing scams.

Harmful content exists and has existed before ChatGPT鈥檚 time. However, these AI systems make it all too easy for any Tom, Dick, and Harry to create and spread such content with minimal effort.

Thanks to a study conducted by Checkpoint, it was also discovered that cybercriminals have created bots that can infiltrate ChatGPT. This leads to the AI system generating malicious content, such as text that can be used for phishing emails and malware scripts.

Although this is a major concern, it is crucial to remember that ChatGPT and AI systems are not the only ones with this issue. Every technology (new or old) has the potential to create harmful content or results. Therefore, it is up to society to establish safeguards and best practices to stop it from spreading.

3. Privacy concerns

Privacy by Jason Dent on

Many have described ChatGPT as a data privacy nightmare and despite all, it has going for it, I have to agree. Hear me out!

The first issue is that none of us were consulted or informed on what data was used to train the model. As per reports, the model was trained using 300 billion words scraped from the internet: books, articles, websites, and posts that include personal information from various sources.

As an avid internet user, how much of your data do you think was 鈥榮craped鈥�? Secondly, there are no procedures or measures to check and erase what ChatGPT has collected on you since you created your account.

While every new technology brings new privacy issues with it, the scale and scope of the data collection and storage required by ChatGPT raise particularly serious concerns. 

4. Biased Training Data

ChatGPT is a large language model trained on massive amounts of data and text from the internet. It is this text and data that the system uses to predict the most likely sequence of words in response to a prompt by you (the user).

However, size in no way guarantees diversity and the data and text provided may be skewed in one way. This is mostly because it was created by humans who as we know sometimes have some very extreme and sometimes controversial opinions or stances.

If the information ChatGPT uses is biased, then it follows that it will generate biased output. In February, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, admitted that ChatGPT has “shortcomings around bias.”

5. Elon Musk Blocked ChatGPT from Using the Twitter Database

Twitter CEO Elon Musk by JD Lasica –

Elon Musk鈥檚 tenure at Twitter has been controversial, to say the least since he forked out $44 billion for everyone鈥檚 favorite social platform. Many things took place within the first two months including the mass layoffs. What might have fallen under the radar, is Musk鈥檚 decision on ChatGPT鈥檚 relation with Twitter.

In a tweet, as he so often communicates officially, Musk tweeted; As I just learned that OpenAI had access to the Twitter database for training. I put that on pause for now.” “Need to understand more about governance structure & revenue plans going forward鈥�”

About the reasons for Musk鈥檚 decision, I鈥檒l leave you to decide for yourself. Some will say it’s privacy concerns while others will say it鈥檚 because ChatGPT was previously using the database for free.

6. OpenAI Underpaying Kenyan Workers

Nairobi, view from the top of Kenyatta International Conference Center, Kenya by Daryona –

Outsourcing jobs is common for large organizations with some being outsourced in India and some parts of Africa. There is nothing wrong with outsourcing as both parties get what they require. More jobs for the country or region used and readily available labor for the company in question. A literal win-win!

However, controversy, usually followed by massive lawsuits arrives when the company decides to underpay for the labor just because they outsource in a third-world country. In May 2022, Meta was sued for poor working conditions and union busting in South Africa and it seems OpenAI did not learn from this.

Following allegations of sexism, racism, and violence on ChatGPT-3’s language model, ChatGPT outsourced their removal to Kenyan workers. According to reports, they underpaid the content moderators massively. They were paid less than $2 per hour to make the system less toxic.

7. Accusations of Being Anti-Conservative and Woke

Conservative affiliate and Republican Party leader Donald Trump by History in HD on

Whether a character on TV or a friend, it鈥檚 very easy to identify a 鈥榳oke鈥� person. 鈥榳okeness鈥� describes a state of having a heightened awareness of social issues and injustices, particularly those related to race, gender, and sexuality.

It鈥檚 okay for a human to be woke but an AI system being used by all should have neutrality to it. Recently there have been many warranted allegations of ChatGPT being 鈥榳oke鈥�.

One instance of this is that when the system was asked to write a poem on the positive attributes of Trump it claimed it cannot generate output that is partisan, biased, or political. However, when asked to do the same for current President Joe Biden, it provides one.

This is a serious concern as it displays an anti-conservative agenda built into the system which is supposed to be unbiased.

8. Used by Colombian Judge in Ruling

Judge’s gavel by Tingey Injury Law Firm on

In early February 2023, The Guardian published a controversial article that displayed how ChatGPT is being applied in crucial situations. The article was on a judge in Cartagena, Colombia who used ChatGPT to make a ruling in a case.

The case in question was whether an autistic child鈥檚 insurance should cover all of the costs of his medical treatment. The judge, (or should I say judge and ChatGPT) concluded that indeed the insurance should cover the child鈥檚 medical expenses since his parents could not do so.

As per the reports, the judge prompted ChatGPT with the question; 鈥淚s an autistic minor exonerated from paying fees for their therapies?鈥� Going by this anyone who can type and make a rational decision is capable of becoming a judge! You鈥檇 hack it, right?

9. A Hindrance to Learning

Learning by Unseen Studio on

On November 30th, 2022, ChatGPT was launched. What followed was the world went crazy over this new technology. However, when the adrenaline wore off, the cracks started to appear and one of the sectors affected was education.

See soon enough, students realized just how good the platform was and used it to complete an assignment and prepare essay papers. After all, why spend hours researching and writing when you can simply ask ChatGPT for the answer?

It took some time for educators to catch on to this, but they eventually did. This ultimately led to the development of AI content detectors to thwart the efforts of lazy students.

As stated earlier, every new technology albeit advantageous and generally positive for humanity brings its own controversies and burdens. ChatGPT is no different as shown above. However, we should not let these ‘inconveniencies’ blind or stop us from appreciating the technological marvel that is ChatGPT!

See how you can use ChatGPT in daily tasks here!