A marketing expert revealed on Friday that the ChatGPT platform displayed safety warnings for links to Republican fundraising websites while not showing similar alerts for Democratic fundraising sites. OpenAI blamed the bias of its AI system, the subject of the first chapter of the new book CODE RED, on a “technical glitch.”
The New York Post reports that OpenAI announced Friday that a “technical error” caused its ChatGPT platform to display safety warnings for links to Republican Party websites while not showing similar alerts for Democratic fundraising sites. The issue came to light when users discovered that links to WinRed, the official Republican Party donation platform, were being flagged as potentially unsafe, while links to ActBlue, the primary Democratic campaign fundraising platform, did not generate similar warnings.
Digital marketer Mike Morrison first brought attention to the discrepancy when he posted about his discovery on X. Morrison asked ChatGPT to generate links for various Democratic and Republican political campaign merchandise stores. The AI system provided links to GOP stores hosted by WinRed, but accompanied them with a warning message asking users to “check this link is safe.”
The warning message further stated that the link was not verified and might contain data from the user’s conversation that could be shared with a third-party site. Users were cautioned to ensure they trusted the link before proceeding. No such warning appeared when Morrison clicked on a link to an ActBlue-run store.
“WILD. ChatGPT universally marks [WinRed] links as potentially unsafe,” Morrison wrote in his social media post. “Of course ActBlue links are totally fine.”
OpenAI responded swiftly to the incident, with a spokesperson saying that the situation should not be occurring and was being addressed. Kate Waters, speaking on behalf of OpenAI, provided a statement explaining the company’s investigation into the matter.
“As soon as we saw the post, we reached out to the individual and looked into it,” Waters said. She emphasized that the issue was not related to political bias, stating, “This wasn’t about partisan politics.”
According to Waters, the technical problem stemmed from the way the system processed certain website links. “The model generated some website links that weren’t in our search index yet for both WinRed and in one instance for ActBlue, and our systems flagged them as AI-generated as part of our standard safeguards,” she explained. Waters confirmed that the company was working to fully resolve the issue.
The incident sparked significant backlash from Republican officials and supporters on social media. Ryan Lyk, the CEO of WinRed, characterized the situation in stark terms when he posted on X, stating, “This is election interference.”
Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall’s new book, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI, explains that the overwhelming leftist bias of Silicon Valley has been instilled into popular AI platforms like ChatGPT. He definitively explains how AI bias happens, and what conservatives can do about it so that ChatGPT doesn’t flag only one side’s fundraising links, or Google Gemini doesn’t label only prominent Republicans as using supposed “hate speech.”
CODE RED covers a wide range of topics related to AI, ranging from its impact on elections and the economy to faith and family. Crucially, the book doesn’t treat AI as a terrible evil or utopian good — rather as a tool that must be harnessed correctly to support American values.
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, praised CODE RED as a “must-read.” She added: “Few understand our conservative fight against Big Tech as Hall does,” making him “uniquely qualified to examine how we can best utilize AI’s enormous potential, while ensuring it does not exploit kids, creators, and conservatives.” Award-winning investigative journalist and Public founder Michael Shellenberger calls CODE RED “illuminating,” ”alarming,” and describes the book as “an essential conversation-starter for those hoping to subvert Big Tech’s autocratic plans before it’s too late.”
Read more at the New York Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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