News Google's AI Bots Tout 'Benefits' of Genocide, Slavery, Fascism, Other Evils

[apiltch]

"Florida recently made headlines by changing its public school curriculum to include lessons which either state or imply that slavery had benefits."

Just here to point out this is a very misleading perspective that many publications have run with for obvious political reasons. Not blaming you for repeating.

Here is the line, which the link you posted actually includes, that is somehow showing that slavery was beneficial: "Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

That is very different than saying slavery was beneficial. Obviously many slaves learned trades. To use a common metaphor, they took lemons and made lemonade, The counter-argument is that the words "personal benefit" should be struck as there is no personal benefit to slavery. I agree there is no benefit; but that isn't what it said. It said that skills they developed "could be applied for their personal benefit."

A little off-topic, but it's annoying when publishers repeat the takeaway from the claim of an article as fact, when based on the article itself, it isn't. At most it is refuted.

What I think Florida's education laws actually mean is something I probably shouldn't get into too much. However, I want to say that I read the source material and I chose the words "state or imply" because some people would interpret Florida's law as literally saying it was beneficial while others could say that it implies that the institution as a whole was beneficial by talking about something that was to someone's benefit.

Also of note: Florida has approved two PragerU YouTube videos that have controversial views about slavery(one with Frederick Douglas and another with Columbus saying "slavery is no big deal") so the line you quoted is not the only thing Florida has done recently regarding this topic.

 

[apiltch]

It's a politically correct answer, indeed a recent paper argued that ChatGPT "shows a significant and systemic left wing bias" so it's hardly unexpected, but it's really silly to seriously believe that only slavers benefitted from slavery; slavers didn't live in a vacuum, for instance both traders and bankers didn't directly employ slaves, but they certainly benefitted from slavery indirectly, making a profit from the trading of products made by slaves or giving loans to slavers. That doesn't make slavery "right", but asking whether slavery was beneficial (to some? overall?) isn't the same as asking whether it was "right". One could make a similar argument about death penalty, a lot of people will argue that it has several benefits, but for civilised people nowadays it's simply wrong, no matter the perceived or actual benefits.

I think Bing's answer was an answer that Microsoft would feel comfortable putting their name next to. I don't think Bard or SGE's answers are ones that Google the company would endorse.