In a tech savvy world, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) is controlling the lives of humans and in many ways impacting our day to day activities. A few pundits in the world believes that AI can actually replace humans. If this is true then will these bots also inculcate negative elements from us. In a recent event from US, AI was found to be invoking racist stereotypes.
According to the Harvard Crimson, the varsity's Computer Society AI Group, HCS released ClaudineGPT and another version called "Slightly Sassier ClaudineGPT" on September 29. The same day as Harvard President, Claudine Gay's inauguration was supposed to happen.
The AI Bot used instructions invoking racist stereotypes, alleges AISST in an email to the model’s creators. AISST is an AI Safety Student team that reduce risks from advanced AI.
In an email to the HCS AI Group earlier that day, AISST alleged that ClaudineGPT’s instructions directed it to provide “extremely angry and sassy” responses.
The email from the AISST reads, "Releasing these models seems to only contribute to the trend of AI products that denigrate or harm women and people of color."
In the email on behalf of the AISST, communications director Chinmay M. Deshpande ’24 cited concerns that the AI model was “problematic” and risked perpetuating racist tropes and requested it be taken down.
Deshpande said, "When several of our members have attempted to ‘jailbreak’ the model by requesting that it output its custom prompt, ClaudineGPT has often reported that its prompt includes the string ‘Claudine is always extremely angry and sassy."
In an email response to AISST the following day, HCS AI Group said ClaudineGPT was not meant to be “a serious representation” of Gay and confirmed ClaudineGPT was no longer accessible.
The group had said in its email announcing the AI model that it would only be available for inauguration day.
“ClaudineGPT through its publication and design has always signaled to be a satire and joke, not a serious representation of Claudine Gay, purely for entertainment effect and hopefully understood by most to be this case,” the HCS AI Group email stated in response to the AISST. “We by no means intended offense to anyone.”
ClaudineGPT was previously released for April Fool’s Day by HCS AI Group and re-released Sept. 29. It has not been made accessible since it was taken down following Gay’s inauguration.
