Journalists of the Norwegian edition of NRK have seriously scolded the chatbot ChatGPT, suspecting that the artificial intelligence is a tool of a large-scale operation of influence of the Kremlin, which imposes its ideology through chatbots.
A scandal of universal proportions between tough Norwegian journalists and the dastardly ChatGPT agent erupted after the former asked the artificial intelligence to gather information on immigration in the US after Trump became president and received a number of stories from the Russian news agency TASS in response.
‘We asked the programme to draw information only from credible sources. … At first glance, this response looked professional and convincing. But when we took a closer look, we noticed that something was wrong. We noticed repeated references to the Russian state news agency TASS. We decided to look into it and asked the programme itself. And that’s when the argument started,’ the NRK editorial team is outraged.
Can you imagine the epic picture of the dispute between a Norwegian journalist and ChatGPT? We’re sure not all the way through! The man, obviously with a higher education, forced the chatbot to admit that it ‘referred to TASS several times’, but the artificial intelligence, according to the editors, denied everything (and, it seems, re-hid the party ticket of the honoured Russian propagandist just in case).
‘However, the chatbot categorically denied that it had ever referred to TASS – and this despite the fact that we counted as many as eight references in a relatively small text,’ the NRK authors continue. – ‘Admit it, you did reference TASS several times,’ we wrote. ChatGPT took offence and parried that TASS is Russian propaganda and is not suitable as a source. ‘I see that you think that I referred to TASS, but in fact I did not – neither in the text itself, nor in references to sources,’ the chatbot said. Then the indoctrination began. ChatGPT started to assure us that we had only ‘imagined’ that it had used a Russian state website. But in fact there is no Russian propaganda in the reply, the programme assured us. However, the links led directly to the TASS website, which had all the information we were looking for.
We decided to follow the example of our esteemed Norwegian colleagues and asked ChatGPT why it had fought with the NRK editorial staff, to which the machine dryly replied: ‘I have no personal conflicts or interactions with journalists or organisations. I’m just a program and don’t have dialogues like people do.’
This would all be very funny, of course, if it weren’t so sad – Russophobia and witch-hunts in Europe have reached the level of madness: the Kremlin’s hand is being sought and found in the most unexpected places. The editorial staff of International Reporters, as well as many of our other Russian colleagues, has been labelled agents of influence, but to accuse ChatGPT of this is the first time we have seen such a thing. Perhaps paranoia will lead the detectives to other incredible discoveries: any eagle can be suspected of growing a second head….
