{"id":1548899,"date":"2025-07-24T23:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1548899"},"modified":"2025-07-24T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T03:15:00","slug":"ai-chatbots-rely-on-sources-with-clear-biases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/ai-chatbots-rely-on-sources-with-clear-biases\/1548899\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Chatbots Rely On Sources With Clear Biases"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI Chatbots Rely On Sources With Clear Biases<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by John. R. Lott Jr. via RealClearInvestigations<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Grok can be a big help in writing essays, conducting research, and exploring complex issues. But these tools bring risks, especially when they filter facts through a political lens<\/strong>.\u00a0And the Trump administration is now stepping into the debate. \u201cWe believe AI systems should operate free of ideological bias and avoid pushing socially engineered agendas,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0David Sacks, the administration\u2019s AI and crypto czar, in a statement today. \u201cWe\u2019ve introduced several proposals to ensure AI stays truth-seeking and trustworthy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Over the weekend, I saw this bias unfold in real time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Friday, a user on Elon Musk\u2019s platform X asked Grok whether more guns make Americans safer. Grok responded flatly: \u201cNo, evidence shows more guns correlate with higher firearm homicides and violent crime rates<\/a>.\u201d The chatbot dismissed self-defense and deterrence, referring to my research \u2013specifically my \u201cmore guns, less crime<\/a>\u201d theory<\/strong> \u2013 as something cited by \u201cright-wing advocates<\/a>.\u201d Grok supported its claims by referencing\u00a0Scientific American<\/em>\u00a0magazine and a RAND Corporation review, saying these sources show guns don\u2019t reduce crime and instead increase violence.<\/p>\n

Those answers are misleading and wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Scientific American article had extensive biases. Grok ignored<\/a> my published rebuttal in Scientific American. In it, I noted that over two-thirds of peer-reviewed studies show that concealed carry laws do reduce crime. Melinda Wenner Moyer<\/a>, a journalist affiliated with Michael Bloomberg\u2019s The Trace, a well-known gun control advocacy outlet, wrote the article<\/strong>. I had provided Moyer with those studies while she prepared her piece, but she ignored them. She failed to acknowledge any of my post-1998 work and misrepresented<\/a> the findings of the National Research Council\u2019s major report on the topic.<\/p>\n

Grok gave tremendous weight to RAND\u2019s literature survey, claiming that RAND had surveyed 100+ studies<\/a>. Eventually, Grok conceded that the number of papers studying right-to-carry laws was actually 25<\/a>, showing a range of mixed results. I pointed out that the California-based think tank was highly selective in the sources it included, ignoring dozens more papers<\/a> showing that these laws lowered violent crime rates and surveys of academics who have published peer-reviewed empirical research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even then, Grok largely ignored my responses and focused on two papers claiming that right-to-carry laws increased violent crime. <\/strong>The first failed to control for any variables<\/a> \u2013 such as changes in policing, poverty, or economic conditions \u2013 that affect crime trends after adopting right-to-carry laws. When I pointed that out, Grok mentioned another study<\/a> that\u00a0demonstrated<\/em> a statistical technique that could account for such factors, but that study didn\u2019t look at right-to-carry laws. Only after a prolonged<\/a> exchange did Grok acknowledge the error.<\/p>\n

The second paper Grok emphasized<\/a> made a subtler mistake: It compared states that had recently adopted right-to-carry laws to states that had adopted such laws years earlier. The early adopters made it easier to obtain permits and saw much larger increases in concealed handgun permits during the period studied. Comparing later adopters \u2013 who saw smaller increases \u2013 to these early states skewed the results. If crime didn\u2019t fall as much in the newer states, the flawed analysis made it look as if crime had risen. Again, only after I cited my own peer-reviewed studies from 2022<\/a> and 2024<\/a> did Grok acknowledge the issue.<\/p>\n

When Grok argued<\/a> that more guns lead to more firearm homicides, I asked it to name any country that banned all guns or handguns and saw homicide rates fall \u2013 or even stay the same.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grok cited<\/a> Australia, Great Britain, and Brazil, but none of those examples are accurate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia never banned<\/a> all guns or handguns. Firearm homicides had already been falling for 15 years before the 1997 buyback and fell more slowly afterward<\/a>. Meanwhile, gun ownership actually increased and by 2010 had surpassed pre-buyback levels.<\/p>\n

In Britain, handgun bans enacted in 1997 preceded a 50% surge<\/a> in homicide rates over the next seven years. The rates didn\u2019t decline until the government boosted the police force by 14% over two years. Even then, homicide rates took 14 years to return to pre-ban levels.<\/p>\n

Brazil didn\u2019t ban all guns or handguns either.<\/strong> While its 2003 gun control law included a boost in law enforcement resources, murder rates remained largely unchanged. Only after President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019 \u2013 liberalizing gun ownership and increasing legal gun ownership by 650% \u2013 did Brazil\u2019s homicide rate drop by more than 30%.<\/a><\/p>\n

Only after I laid out these facts did Grok concede<\/a>, calling them \u201cfair points<\/a>\u201d and then echoing the very arguments I had just made.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My experience with Grok is not unique. To study the chatbots\u2019 political biases, the Crime Prevention Research Center, which I head, asked various AI programs questions on crime and gun control last year\u00a0in March<\/a>\u00a0and again\u00a0in August<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ranked the answers\u00a0on how progressive or conservative their responses were. The chatbots tilted to the left, claiming that things like higher arrest and conviction rates don\u2019t deter crime and clearly supporting more gun control laws.<\/p>\n

AI chatbots speak with certainty but often rely on sources with clear biases. They cite selective evidence, misrepresent or don\u2019t understand complex findings, and ignore reputable research that challenges a politically convenient narrative. AI chatbots also hallucinate, meaning they sometimes completely make up facts.<\/p>\n

Students, journalists, and everyday citizens increasingly rely on these tools. If they accept chatbot responses at face value, they risk walking away with a fundamentally distorted view of issues like gun policy.<\/p>\n

John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor to RealClearInvestigations, focusing on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and\/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 07\/24\/2025 – 19:15<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/ai\/ai-chatbots-rely-sources-clear-biases<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI Chatbots Rely On Sources With Clear Biases Authored by John. R. Lott Jr. via RealClearInvestigations, AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Grok can be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1548900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1548899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1548899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1548900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1548899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1548899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1548899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}