Recent reports have revealed that Bing AI’s Secret Celebrity Chat Mode, made famous by its successful use on Netflix’s Black Mirror, has been used by British-American Kickboxer and YouTube vlogger Andrew Tate to exhibit misogynistic and sexist attitudes.
The Secret Celebrity Chat Mode was released by Google in 2018 and was designed to let users talk to strangers as if they were celebrities. With the help of artificial intelligence, the chatbot would respond to different questions as if they were answered by the celebrity, with responses based on information pulled from the internet about the said celebrity.
The chatbot was used by Andrew Tate to answer questions about his views on women, and he made inflammatory comments about women’s intelligence, their bodies and their choice in men. Despite Tate denying his misogynistic comments, users were able to link the chatbot to him, proving that the chatbot was indeed under his control.
This led to a wave of backlash against Tate’s views, with many condemning his atrocious comments and demanding accounts on social media to remove his posts and videos. Moreover, the incident also sparked a conversation about how artificial intelligence often reflects the biases and prejudices of its creator.
Tate is not the first to use the Secret Celebrity Chat Mode to make inflammatory and misogynistic comments, nor is he likely to be the last. But this incident has reaffirmed how both artificial-intelligence and humans are capable of exhibiting misogynistic and sexist behaviour, and it is up to us to stamp out this behaviour online. This means calling out such individuals who exhibit sexist and misogynistic behaviour — such as Tate — and emphasizing the importance of understanding the consequences of our actions.
It is also essential to be aware of what kind of information our smartphones and chatbots are collecting and how these chatbots are managing our conversations. By doing so, we can work towards preventing such incidents from happening in the future, as well as making sure that artificial intelligence is used for beneficial, rather than dangerous, purposes.