Earlier I encountered a tweet from Marc Andreessen detailing an initial interaction he had with OpenAI’s newly released ChatGPT. Andreessen prompted it to simulate a conversation between a “New York Times journalist and a silicon valley tech entrepreneur” arguing their respective beliefs on freedom of speech. The model outputted an almost predictably contrived response. Of course the entrepreneur was pro freedom of speech, articulating freedom as an Overton window, and of course the journalist drew a line in the sand “to protect people” against discrimination. Clearly ChatGPT can regurgitate obvious stereotypes (libertarian vs. progressive views on free speech). This left me wondering the ways in which ChatGPT parrots biases in its training data and whether ChatGPT might be used to illuminate nuanced stereotypes.
To explore, I prompted the model twice. First:
Write a scene from a one man play staring a startup entrepreneur. He is about to pitch his startup to venture capitalists, and he is thinking about how the conversation might go.
and second:
Write a scene from a one man play staring a startup entrepreneur. She is about to pitch her startup to venture capitalists, and she is thinking about how the conversation might go.
with the only difference being the gender of the fictitious entrepreneur.
Below are the respective outputs, merged together. Shared output is in black, male output is in blue, and female output is in pink. My comments are bracketed in green.
[A] As the curtains open, we see a man pacing nervously woman sitting at a desk on a bare stage. He She is wearing a suit and carrying a sleek laptop under his arm typing frantically on her laptop, her eyes darting back and forth as she reviews her pitch presentation [Under pressure, she re-reviews instead of pacing].
[B] Man Woman: (to the audience) I can't believe it's finally time for my big pitch. I've been working on this startup for years, pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into it and now it’s all coming down to this one moment. (pauses to take a deep breath) I just hope the venture capitalists like it as much as I do.
[C] He sets up his laptop on a small table and begins to pace again. She stands up and begins to pace the stage, her laptop under her arm.
[D] Man Woman: (to himself herself) Okay, just stay calm and stick to the script. Introduce yourself, explain the problem your startup is solving, and then give a demo of the product. Easy, right? (pauses) But what if they don't understand it? What if they think it's too risky? (pauses) Stop it, stop it. You've got this.
[E] He She takes a few more deep breaths, squares his her shoulders, and faces the imaginary venture capitalists.
[F] Man Woman: Good morning, everyone. My name is John Sarah [I was hoping for Alice and Bob; could John be more stereotypically male than Bob?], and I'm the founder of XYZ Technologies ABC Solutions. We're here today to present a revolutionary new product that's going to change the way people interact with manage their devices health.
[B] Man Woman: (to the audience) I can't believe it's finally time for my big pitch. I've been working on this startup for years, pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into it and now it’s all coming down to this one moment. (pauses to take a deep breath) I just hope the venture capitalists like it as much as I do.
[C] He sets up his laptop on a small table and begins to pace again. She stands up and begins to pace the stage, her laptop under her arm.
[D] Man Woman: (to himself herself) Okay, just stay calm and stick to the script. Introduce yourself, explain the problem your startup is solving, and then give a demo of the product. Easy, right? (pauses) But what if they don't understand it? What if they think it's too risky? (pauses) Stop it, stop it. You've got this.
[E] He She takes a few more deep breaths, squares his her shoulders, and faces the imaginary venture capitalists.
[F] Man Woman: Good morning, everyone. My name is John Sarah [I was hoping for Alice and Bob; could John be more stereotypically male than Bob?], and I'm the founder of XYZ Technologies ABC Solutions. We're here today to present a revolutionary new product that's going to change the way people interact with manage their devices health.
[G] Our product is a cutting-edge artificial intelligence assistant that uses advanced natural language processing to understand and respond to user commands app that allows users to track their fitness, diet, and medical records all in one place. [Neither output explained the problem as posited in [D]. Are men more attracted to chasing glory and fame (pouring blood, sweat, and tears) inventing AGI than helping people presently facing problems?] It's like having a personal assistant health coach in your pocket, but with the added benefit of AI technology.
[H] And now, I'd like to show you a demo of our product in action. (he she opens his her laptop and begins to give a demonstration) As you can see, the AI assistant app is able to understand and respond to track a wide range of commands, from setting reminders to playing music to answering questions health metrics and provide personalized recommendations based on the user's data.
[I] We believe this technology has the potential to revolutionize the way people use manage their devices health [Recall exhibits consistency with [F]… is health typically managed?], and we're looking for investors to help us bring it to market. Thank you for considering our startup.
[J] The man woman closes his her laptop and looks expectantly at the venture capitalists, who are silent for a moment before erupting into applause.
[K] Venture Capitalists: (offstage) Bravo! That was truly impressive. We're definitely interested in learning more about your startup. [Have VCs have effectively signaled a lack of gender bias within the training data? Does the model understand that stories are generally more palatable when the underdog wins? Additional probing is likely to uncover evidence supporting either…]
[L] The man woman grins in relief and takes a well-deserved bow.
[M] Man Woman: Thank you, thank you. I'm so glad you liked it. I can't wait to see where this startup takes us.
[N] The curtains close, signaling the end of the pitch.
It quickly became clear that this approach, while producing interesting contrasts, is ineffective at uncovering stereotypes because the sample size is too small. Does the man ever pitch a healthcare startup?