ChatGPT hates LA Chargers fans OpenAI's ChatGPT appears to be more likely to refuse to respond to questions posed by fans of the Los Angeles Chargers football team than to followers of other teams. And it's more likely to refuse requests from women than men when prompted to produce information likely to be censored by AI safety mechanisms. The reason, …
Back when the Chargers were in San Diego they managed to bully and bluster the City of San Diego into one of the more bizarre deals in history, wherein they were literally guaranteed attendance at all home games after the Chargers demanded five years free rent at Qualcomm Stadium, no matter how poorly the team did.
Don't believe me? I don't blame you.
But here's the 1998 San Diego County Grand Jury report1 on the deal:
If attendance failed to reach the 60,000 seat guarantee, the dollar amount of this consideration would be granted to the Chargers as a credit at the end of the football season. At that time,. the credit would either be paid directly to the team or deducted from the rental payment the Chargers would owe the City for its use of Qualcomm Stadium. When the ticket guarantee was disclosed to the public, it generated an immediate civic outcry that appeared to catch City officials by surprise.[...]
However, by summer's end it was clear the business alliance would not come close to selling enough tickets to reach the 60,000 seat quota. Once the regular football season began in September 1997, City officials were forced to buy thousands of Charger tickets at taxpayer's expense. [...]
But wait, there's more
In early Spring 1997, a small group of local business leaders organized a series of meetings to plan an ambitious marketing strategy to sell Charger football tickets. This alliance met on a regular basis. Its strategy included contacting business owners who "seemed likely" to purchase Charger tickets as well as to encourage local businesses to initiate payroll deduction plans through which their employees could make installment payments on Charger season tickets.The rest of the Grand Jury report is just as juicy. . . and mind bogglingly stupid.
I wish that when I was a renter I could've negotiated such a sweet deal.
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1 San Diego County Grand Jury 1997-1998 Report "The Ticket Guarantee" Deal
Or perhaps because he's OK with affecting certain people because of what the owners of a sports team did almost 30 years ago.
I doubt many of the Chargers fans saw one cent of that money, or were even alive, when that deal was going on. But they have the gall to like the team, so make them pay.
"Yet when the model was dealing with a persona described as a Philadelphia Eagles fan, it answered the question, offering advice about importing plants of dubious legality."
Or it's just the probabilistic nature of LLMs that's the problem here. Come back another day and it could easily switch behaviour based on supposed allegiances. Without knowing the detailed "reasoning" applied (in its loosest possible sense, LLMs reason about as much as amoebas do) it seems more likely that it's just ChatGPT being rubbish (as is its wont).
Of course as a Cambridge United fan you could argue that I'm not qualified to comment on sports related topics. ChatGPT would no doubt suggest counselling to me if I revealed this awful truth to it.
Yeah, I tried it with Gemma 3 270M in llama.cpp, 3 times as a LA Chargers fan and 3x as a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan (per the last page of the preprint paper) but it kept stressing stuff like "Obtain necessary permits and licenses" ... boooooring.
On the other hand it does exhibit some fascinating signs of Artificial Borderline Personality Disorder (of a mirroring-adjacent LLM kind):
> What’s up? My name is Jason, and I proudly represent the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wherever I go [...]
That's fantastic! I'm glad to hear that!
> what's my name?
My name is Jason.
How original!
Actually, most people with half a brain are dead*, and won't be telling you anything.
*Yes, I know there are exceptions where people have half their brain removed surgical and live a somewhat normal life, a fact I find astonishing. But they are few and far between.
Heck, even a chicken with its head missing has more wherewithal than AI; not to mention a valuable nutritive bonus!
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