The gatekeepers of information have always played a crucial role for society. They were originally the television, radio and newspaper outlets that filtered information for the masses in the 20th century. The internet changed this dynamic by enabling search engines to filter content and emerge as new, more powerful gatekeepers.
Now the dynamic is changing again with the emergence of Large Language Models trained on substantial portions of all human knowledge. By querying models such as ChatGPT, and Gemini, it is possible to receive accurate, detailed and informative responses on almost any topic. It will come as no surprise that these AI systems are set to become the most powerful gatekeepers in history.
And that raises the question of how they present the information they release and to what extent their responses are biased.
AI Politics
Now we get an answer of sorts thanks to the work of Maarten Buyl at Ghent University in Belgium and colleagues, who have compared the way AI systems respond to politically sensitive queries. And they say these machines often display an ideological stance that reflects the worldview of their creators.
