Summary
Fable, a social media app focused on books, faced backlash for its AI-generated 2024 reading summaries containing offensive and biased commentary, like labeling a user a “diversity devotee” or urging another to “surface for the occasional white author.”
The feature, powered by OpenAI’s API, was intended to be playful and fun. However, some of the summaries took on an oddly combative tone, making inappropriate comments on users’ diversity and sexual orientation.
Fable apologized, disabled the feature, and removed other AI tools.
Critics argue the response was insufficient, highlighting broader issues of bias in generative AI and the need for better safeguards.
If these llms are trained on the garbage of the internet, why is everyone surprised they keep spitting out vitriol?
Garbage from the Internet for the Internet.
Every time I see a story like this, I’m always pretty sure it’s an AI that was trained on Reddit content.
Why not 4chan?
I actually had that thought as well, and while they certainly might, I think they’re aiming more for the people who add “reddit” to a Google search when looking for answers.
They got rid of it asap and then organized a zoom call with all users.
At least they listened. Have heard generally positive things from people who use fable.
Fable apologized, disabled the feature, and removed other AI tools.
Critics argue the response was insufficient, highlighting broader issues of bias in generative AI and the need for better safeguards.
What? I doubt these “critics” exist beyond this article having to have an open-ended closer.
If it was supposed to roast people and someone was way into diversity and stuff like that then you’d sorta expect it to make jokes about it.
Sure, as long as it roasted people for not reading diverse authors, or not reading lgbt books. If one of its jokes was “Hey captain white stuff, you ever hear of Maya Angelou?” then you may have a point.
Somehow i doubt it.
Why couldn’t you joke about the reverse? If you’re looking for roasts you’d be silly to expect to be all aligning to your world view but just to be funny
If they had, it would be at least consistent, yeah. Im not seeing any reference to that “reverse” joke though, only attacks on people who like diverse authors.
Once someone posts an example of it making lightly racist jokes for liking white authors, then sure, it’s still dumb and shitty, but at least consistent. If the only “jokes” that happened are attacking diversity, that’s not “just jokes, bro.”
You absolutely can have one-sided joking though. Not sure what you think jokes are tbqh
I think if someone just makes jokes about “the gays” and “the blacks” its pretty clear they aren’t “just joking.”
You can read more of them here. They all appear to be pretty slanted in one direction:
One person who read books about people with disabilities was told her choices “could earn an eye-roll from a sloth.” Another said a reader’s books were “making me wonder if you’re ever in the mood for a straight, cis white man’s perspective.”
Ms. Trammell, who lives in Detroit, downloaded Fable in October to track her reading. Around Christmas, she had read books that prompted summaries related to the holiday. But just before the new year, she finished three books by Black authors.
Your journey dives deep into the heart of Black narratives and transformative tales, leaving mainstream stories gasping for air. Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?”
The company is chagrined about it, but it’s also clear their tooling is attacking any diverse taste, not everyones tastes.
Your journey dives deep into the heart of Black narratives and transformative tales, leaving mainstream stories gasping for air. Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?”
I mean this was pretty funny lol
And they can still be jokes if slanted in one direction. Humor doesn’t require both siding.
“Lol, it’s just AI being racist guys. Laugh along.”
Good counterpoint.
It’s funny that naive AI runs into the same issue as crowd-sourcing or democratic control of content. Namely, a stupid userbase creates stupid content. If it doesn’t have insight, it can’t be insightful.
This seems like it already happened before? Didn’t M$ have some bot that started parroting pro-Hitler things?
