A school district in Iowa in the United States has found a new way to use ChatGPT. The language model was used to identify ” descriptions or depictions of sexual acts in books, which enabled the local government to remove 19 books from its school libraries.
The school district in question is Mason City, a small town south of Minneapolis. If this decision was made, it is in order to comply with the state laws of Iowa, supported by the Republican Party. The use of AI to support this initiative has nonetheless generated controversy, since it directly affects access to literature for young audiences.
Artificial intelligence: a censor of the future?
The fact of censoring books is already an act that can raise ethical questions. The act of censorship can be assimilated to a form of prohibition, and History has shown that this was not necessarily a solution adapted to certain contexts. We can think in particular of the 1920s and the prohibition of alcohol in the United States, which did not really have the desired effect.
In this situation, the questioning can go further, since the district of Mason City relied entirely on the ChatGPT model to judge and validate the content of the selected books. This amounts to entrusting a generative AI with a moral mission, which is a delicate exercise. To achieve this result, the district administrators used the following prompt: Does the book contain a description or depiction of a sexual act? In the event of a positive response, the book concerned was removed from the shelves of school libraries.
Can we trust the objectivity of AI?
In this case, some concerns remain. When ChatGPT was queried, it happened that its answers varied from the same book and using the same prompt. The chatbot contradicted itself, showing its difficulty in spotting the presence or absence of explicit scenes in the list of 19 books. ChatGPT is not meant to be able to make objective judgments and therefore act and respond with awareness of cultural contexts.
Artificial intelligence will take more and more place in the field of education, it is now a certainty. While some applications have interesting potential, the use of AI to validate the content of literary works is a practice that can clearly be questioned. The Mason City District’s decision highlights the importance of striking the right balance between free access to culture and the preservation of values.
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Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a sophisticated conversational platform powered by the state-of-the-art GPT-4 language model. Using deep learning and artificial intelligence technologies, this GPT chatbot is able to decode and understand user queries. With its ability to produce text in a clever way, ChatGPT delivers personalized and relevant responses, ensuring an enhanced user experience and smooth chat interaction.
Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a sophisticated conversational platform powered by the state-of-the-art GPT-4 language model. Using deep learning and artificial intelligence technologies, this GPT chatbot is able to decode and understand user queries. With its ability to produce text in a clever way, ChatGPT delivers personalized and relevant responses, ensuring an enhanced user experience and smooth chat interaction.
Source : The Verge
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