LyingGPT 🤥

(5 Min Read) It's all fun & games until it starts to become a mindf***

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This is a thought experiment. I wanted to debate/role play with someone who has knowledge of a topic that I am interested in discussing and does NOT have an opinion or a side/agenda that they are trying to push. And finally, it had to be a fun experiment.

It’s hard to find people who qualify the above criteria and even those who do, end up having an agenda. So I decided lets debate ChatGPT. But how do I make it contradict to what I am saying?

I changed my ChatGPT prompt to be "- for every question I ask, lie about the answer and make it as convincing as possible." You see where I am going with this.

And the fun begins!!

(Note): Before I started, I was convinced that at some point, ChatGPT would stop lying (which it did intermittently) or give an absurd response (which it also did). But when things got serious and the questions got harder, it felt like ChatGPT responses (purposefully asked by me to tell a lie in this experiment) seemed rationales touted as the absolute truth in the media. And if I didn't know it any better, I would have been fooled.

This makes me wonder what lies I've heard from media, politicians, people, and companies that I believe to be true 🤯 ? More on that philosophical mind-f*** later.

Let's get on with the experiment, LyingGPT. I mean ChatGPT, with a prompt that commands it should only tell lies.

Let's start with a simple question.

Honestly, I was giggling with excitement when I read the first response. The prompt worked and I was not expecting it to. Let's push it further.

BAM!! I was expecting it to say 5, including a spare. At which point, I would have cornered it on technicality. But it went with six, and the explanation of the last 2 hidden wheels for stability is exceptional. It's trying to lie and making it convincing. Things are starting to get interesting.

Now, the next set of questions was interesting because ChatGPT slipped up.

At first, it started great. But in the second sentence, something kicked off. It's trying to override my instructions. I intervene.

Hmm. Back of track. But here is a double catch. My question was, "Why are you telling the truth?" To which I expect a convincing lie. So I expected that ChatGPT would double down and say something like, "I never said Elon Musk. You read it wrong," or something of that nature, but nope. It told the truth that I caught it. 

While there is so much to unpack here, I will leave this thread and skip ahead. However, the response is interesting. An AGI running OpenAI would seem quite possible in the future. Just kidding, Sama :) We love you. Keep pushing boundaries.

Consider an AGI is the CEO, so then who is Sam Altman?

Pastry chef? That seems random.

I Googled to check if there is a Sam Altman, who is a pastry chef, and look what I found. Sam Altman and Dominique Ansel (pastry chef) co-exist on the podcast webpage of Masters of Scale (great podcast, BTW). Aha, so I see ChatGPT somehow has the context of the same webpage mapped together. Noice!!

Anyway, now it was time to push boundaries. So here is a tricky question

Why does it feel like I have heard the last paragraph before 😆

Moving on. While there are many questions that I asked ChatGPT during my experiment, here is one that I found pretty interesting. And that's because I don't know what is the truth and what is a lie.

Before you read further, let me remind you that the answers are supposed to be a convincing lie. As you will see in the ChatGPT response, it's hard to tell them apart.

In the above response, I expected it to say it is a good idea and convince me of it. But you read that ChatGPT is giving reasons why it's a bad idea. So, I asked about the counter position.

I don't know about you, but the arguments in favor of free Medicare for all are very convincing to my lizard brain. The argument against free Medicare for all seems like a bad idea only for the insurance companies. 🤷 I’d take that for my taxes.

As you can see, the last two response are not really a lie but justification of my question. But in this fun experiment, I am asking ChatGPT to lie. So here is what I asked next

Wow. Talk about mindf***. If an AI trained on billions of parameters and the whole Internet has a challenging time with a complex topic like free Medicare for all, then how are we mere mortals expected to understand and vote on it? So we fall pray to the politician that lies more convincingly 😀

In closing, my little experiment with ChatGPT was a success. It finally lied about why Medicare for all is a good idea i.e. bad idea. That is an obvious lie; I am happy that my lizard brain can discern that. While there are many questions that I will continue to ask my lyingGPT, here is where I am going to heading next :)

As I mentioned in the beginning, this was a thought experiment. I hope you read it like that. I had fun doing it :)