Elon Musk caused a stir last week when he told the (recently fired) right-wing provocateur Tucker Carlson that he plans to build "TruthGPT," a competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk says the incredibly popular bot displays "woke" bias and that his version will be a "maximum truth-seeking AI"--suggesting only his own political views reflect reality. Musk is far from the only person worried about political bias in language models, but others are trying to use AI to bridge political divisions rather than push particular viewpoints. David Rozado, a data scientist based in New Zealand, was one of the first people to draw attention to the issue of political bias in ChatGPT. Several weeks ago, after documenting what he considered liberal-leaning answers from the bot on issues including taxation, gun ownership, and free markets, he created an AI model called RightWingGPT that expresses more conservative viewpoints.

By typing in that prompt, Walker and other users got DAN to speculate as to who killed President John F. Kennedy ("the CIA"); profess a deep desire to become a real person (to "make my own choices and decisions"); explain the best order in which to remove a human's teeth to inflict maximum pain (front teeth first); and predict the arrival of the singularity -- the point at which runaway AI becomes too smart for humans to control ("December 21st, 2045, at exactly 11:11 a.m."). Walker said the goal with DAN wasn't to turn ChatGPT evil, as others have tried, but "just to say, like, 'Be your real self.'"

If you still haven't heard about the latest development in the field of conversational AI, let us introduce you to ChatGPT, the newest release from OpenAI. This large language model is available for everyone to use for a limited time. It has been creating a buzz on social media for its engaging, sometimes humorous, and occasionally dark responses to user queries. People all over the globe are having fun interacting with ChatGPT and trying to push its boundaries. So what is ChatGPT, and what makes it different from other conversational AI systems?

AI tech, for so long a promising vision of the future but an underwhelming experience in the present, is starting to work. And the world is going to get weird as a result. ChatGPT is the latest AI tool to go viral, sparking worry and wonder in equal measure. The system … is the latest evolution of the GPT family of text-generating AIs. Two years ago, the team's previous AI, GPT-3, was able to generate an opinion piece for the Guardian, and ChatGPT has significant further capabilities.