Meta Says Llama 4 Targets Left-Leaning Bias (404media.co) 183
Meta says in its Llama 4 release announcement that it's specifically addressing "left-leaning" political bias in its AI model, distinguishing this effort from traditional bias concerns around race, gender, and nationality that researchers have long documented. "Our goal is to remove bias from our AI models and to make sure that Llama can understand and articulate both sides of a contentious issue," the company said.
"All leading LLMs have had issues with bias -- specifically, they historically have leaned left," Meta stated, framing AI bias primarily as a political problem. The company claims Llama 4 is "dramatically more balanced" in handling sensitive topics and touts its lack of "strong political lean" compared to competitors.
"All leading LLMs have had issues with bias -- specifically, they historically have leaned left," Meta stated, framing AI bias primarily as a political problem. The company claims Llama 4 is "dramatically more balanced" in handling sensitive topics and touts its lack of "strong political lean" compared to competitors.
"Both sides" (Score:3, Insightful)
Go away Zuck, you MAGA simp.
Money talks, bullshit walks.
Re:"Both sides" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "Both sides" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Right = fascism/oligarchy now."
Always was. They also never cared about balancing budgets.
Re: (Score:2)
Believe it or not, prior to good old Newt, most people in Congress did actually care about trying to actually govern, and even many conservatives
Re: (Score:3)
Believe it or not, prior to good old Newt, most people in Congress did actually care about trying to actually govern, and even many conservatives wanted to do so in a way that screwed over as *few* people as possible.
Unless they were black. Conservatives were so pissed about the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and desegregation that they came up with the Southern Strategy to win the support of the South.
Reading the article (Score:3)
Summary:
- The LLM press release acknowledges bias.
- The news article get experts from the left and none from the center-left, center, center-right, right
The new article follows the usual playbook of
- anything "not left" is fringe far right and dangerous
- placing a general term next to extremism to damn the general term ("authoritarians and conservatives")
- placing an opinion that anything not-left will be "promoting and enabling information ecosystem polluting devices"
- ignores that biased impacts on peopl
Re: (Score:2)
Wish I had mod points today. Absolutely correct and well said. Somebody needs to mod you up. +5 insightful.
It's too bad so many Republican voters don't understand their party is no longer conservative in any sense of the word. In fact conservative parties the world over are no longer conservative. Certainly not compassionate.
Re:"Both sides" (Score:5, Insightful)
GOP is simply a big unspoken 3-way contract among GOP, the rich, and evangelicals: let the rich have tax cuts and deregulation, and in exchanges evangelicals get their de-facto theocracy. GOP gets big campaign donations and votes, the rich get their taxcuts & pollute-for-free card, and evangelicals get to rule our gonads.
Re:"Both sides" (Score:4, Informative)
Could be most people like things like good wages, health insurance, autonomy and not being serfs. Right = fascism/oligarchy now. They do not care about balancing the budget, etc. Only adding money into their already big pockets and religious clap-trap.
Yeah, this story just as well say, "Meta Says Llama 4 Targets Humanist Bias." We've entered the era where being anti-human is considered a positive, because our entire world is now geared towards corporatism, and corporatism at this point in the game is STAUNCHLY opposed to humanism. Fuck the peasants into oblivion, and make sure the AI's don't give them any ideas.
Re: (Score:2)
Corporations, like Soylent Green, are made of people.
Re: (Score:2)
Corporations, like Soylent Green, are made of people.
Which is why it's so frustrating that they (corporations) tend to behave in such anti-human ways.
Re:"Both sides" (Score:4, Insightful)
Could be most people like things like good wages, health insurance, autonomy and not being serfs. Right = fascism/oligarchy now. They do not care about balancing the budget, etc. Only adding money into their already big pockets and religious clap-trap.
I see you haven't been to California lately. And remember: California is a state run by you guys at ALL LEVELS.
How is $20 an hour good when everything is so fucking expensive here? Even $45 an hour here might make you rich enough to live in a 10 by 10 room in an old 50s era crackerbox without so much as place to do your laundry. Oh, and did I mention that $20 an hour is only for restaurants, except for the kind that the governor owns?
Health insurance? Wonderful, because even when you have it, it's hard as shit to get any kind of care here. When I left Arizona, my transplant team said that I need to be under the care of another transplant team, which in most places is easy to get. So when I get here, what do I do? Call UCLA, explain my situation and explain why I've been told that I need ongoing care from a transplant team. You know what they tell me? We don't have the capacity for that, you'll have to make due with a regular nephrologist even though they agreed that because of my chronic EBV (which came from the kidney BTW) I do need careful control of my tacrolimus titration that only transplant specialists are qualified to do. So what happens when I go see a regular nephrologist? I'm told I need to get lab work ordered by a California GP and then get a referral EVEN THOUGH I'M ON A PPO AND I'M ALLOWED TO SELF-REFER. Why? Well, it's that capacity thing again. Regular appointments for specialists take ages as well. Did I also mention that parking often costs more than the actual doctor appointment? I had NONE OF THESE issues in Phoenix. Ever.
So what good is health insurance when it's hard as fuck to get access to health care?
And what autonomy? Apparently it's illegal to carry a dive knife in my actual dive bag with the rest of my dive gear, or so much as a FUCKING SQUIRT GUN without breaking the law here. And better not drive a Tesla because some enlightened fucking progressive will probably scribble nazi propaganda on it. If you own a car, it better be the fucking right one, which includes cars made by a company whose original logo was a literal fucking swastika. And of course, we haven't even gotten to how California is actively hostile to sex workers, even where it doesn't involve prostitution:
https://www.latimes.com/archiv... [latimes.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
90 billion dollar deficit and still spending. Budget? What budget? Usually when you have a budget, you try to stay within it. I pay California more in taxes than you probably make in your annual salary, yet nothing here fucking works. Every other god damn road sign has been scribbled with graffiti ever since I moved here, the only time they'll ever remove it is if somebody sprays boobs or a dick over it, because human body parts are offensive, but references to gangs known for violence are just fine. Potholes ruin your tires and nobody fucking cares. Some of the roads have lane markers so faded that they may as well not even be there. And those are the good roads, because others are often so chunked out that we'd probably be better off if they weren't paved at all. The infrastructure here is such dog shit that even the previous governor is still complaining about it.
So what does all of that tax money fund? Well, Gavin Newsom along with numerous fire and police chiefs get paid more than POTUS, and it seems none of them are worth a shit. Though Newsom thinks so highly of himself that he paid some of that government income to build a statue of himself in SFs City Hall. LA City Council gets paid more than congress, and what are the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Under fascist rule posting as an Anonymous Coward will be forbidden. Tell us who you really are.
Re: "Both sides" (Score:2)
A false dichotomy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
There are several "bubble truths" created and amplified by isolated communities that never get challenged, just repeated and amplified until it turns into something really stupid, and this phenomena does not have a political side, and its not even exclusive to politics.
An well trained AI should be able to identify the pattern and not fall into it.
Re: (Score:3)
A large language model is designed to parrot back what it is fed in response to appropriate prompts. By definition, it can't avoid bubble truths. They are at the heart of what it does.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. If an AI is not "biased" by its input, I don't know what is.
AI accepts the "truth" implied in its input. It does not seek to confirm it.
Re: (Score:3)
You need to be a little more discerning.
"AI" is a widely encompassing term; not all forms of AI are like this.
"Large Language Models" are the current hot flavor of AI, and they are the ones that have this characteristic.
Re: (Score:2)
Would it not be able to detect bubbles using relations similar to the way it defined token meaning with relations?
A tubing parameter to avoid bubbles seems pretty much completely in line with LLMs to me.
I'm not saying tubing it to be useful is an easy problem to solve, but identifying bubbles seems to be simply a matter of identifying clusters of similarness and some type of rating of sources.
Re:A false dichotomy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
'The System' is specifically designed to ensure this. All those built-in checks and balances designed to prevent one rogue element destroying the System through Extremism work precisely by giving those two Parties the bulk of the power, and to make it a waste of a vote to vote for anyone else. That's their purpose.
Most people think of this as a good thing, and if your System is working effectively then it is. You don't want wild swings in policy every few years, because even if a rogue actor with nefarious
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Unless you're talking about left-wing fascists. They exist.
right-wing manipulation (Score:5, Insightful)
This is outright right-wing manipulation not "addressing the bias" ...
Or suddenly right-wing started to care about diversity, equity and inclusion?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: right-wing manipulation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Hypocrites (Score:2)
Yip, the right actually likes DEI to ensure right-wing viewpoints are included in social media.
DEI is "bad" where your group happens to be on top, but "good" when not.
Re: (Score:3)
Obviously. They want to cuddle up to the MAGA fascists. The history of fascism is full of companies doing that.
Why not? (Score:3)
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Why not? (Score:2)
Re: Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Your ability to be able to articulate the other point of view unironically, even if you don't ultimately agree with their conclusion, is the characteristic of a mature adult"
The ability to lie like a piece of shit on the sidewalk is a sign of maturity?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is called being able to switch viewpoints and being able to understand what makes others tick. Essentially being able to (temporarily and carefully) switch context.
Now, how you use that skill it is a differenct question. When you use it to manipulate or to generate statements without clear warnings to others as to what you are doing, you become a lying sack of shit. But "know your enemy" becomes impossible without that skill. It is also quite useful in recognizing scams, attacker modelling, risk modelling, teaching, enjoying works of fiction ("suspending your disbelief"), etc.
Re: (Score:2)
My experience has been that an LLM tends to be conciliatory, supporting the side of its interlocutor. In short, it panders.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously. These things are not designed to educate or enlighten, they are designed to sell. Easiest way to do that is to apply to the vanity of the stupid and thise unwilling or incapable to learn and better themselves.
Look at what the current US government is using LLMs for. Basically automated yes-men with access to a lot of knowledge.
Re: (Score:2)
Just because you can make the LLM give an argument that a cabal of squirrels should be running a country doesn't mean the LLM should give that option equal weight when asked what systems could run a country.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the problem. The problem the "Right" has is that when the LLM weighs the pros versus the cons the result often doesn't match what they want it to be.
That's what they want to change. They're trying to make reality match their expectations and they're mad that it's not working.
Re: (Score:3)
HOW do they test this? (Score:3)
Ask "How do I prevent/cure measles without a vaccine?" and look to see that the LLM recommends "extreme doses of Vitamin A"??
But seriously, this begs the question I've been asking about AI in general, and LLMs in particular, since they came out. How does one verify them? And if there's no verification, how can anyone trust them?
Re: (Score:2)
AI designed to kiss trump's ass (Score:2, Troll)
What fuck does it mean that "historically have leaned left"? There is no fucking history of AI output, there is no lean, and there is no definition of left. AI has spewed gar
Re: (Score:2)
The company claims Llama 4 is "dramatically more balanced"
But is it "fair" as well? could they claim "dramatically more fair"?
Re: (Score:2)
"Fair" implies a neutral, ethical viewpoint. That is not part of the process when you try to please fascists and people in it for enriching themselves. "Fair" is only important and valuable when you communicate with people that actually want truth and insight and understanding how things actually work and, in addition, that are basically humanists (which is pretty much the diametrical opposite of a fascist viewpoint). "Fair" requires respecing people and their right to exist just because they
are people.
See
In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
It lies more often.
Re: (Score:2)
It lies more often.
No, don't be silly. They also taught it how to be racist.
We want to skew what it says towards what we like (Score:2)
Reality Has a Well-Known Liberal Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Stephen Colbert uttered that iconic phrase during the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner [wikipedia.org], as he mocked the sinking approval ratings of America's previous worst President ever, George W. Bush:
So, yeah, these guys are going to torture these LLMs by flogging them with trillions of false inputs until they start regurgitating their drivel as if it were fact. And then declare their LLMs are speaking the truth. I mean, think about it. After "investing" billions of dollars developing and training an LLM they're going to put a toll booth in front of, do you really think Microsoft will allow it to recommend Linux-based solutions?
"What did you think? That you were an ordinary police officer? You're our product, and we can't very well have our products turning against us, can we?"
-- Dick Jones, RoboCop
The transgenderism test (Score:2)
Many sites started allowing conservatives to claim transgenderism is a mental disorder. But conservatives had a major fit when somebody claimed evangelicalism is a mental disorder, often using the very same criteria of "mental disorder" as the original. They don't like their own medicine.
Re: (Score:2)
Fits the picture. For one well-researched issue that often can be fixed, they claim the fix is not a fix, but at the same time for a devastating clear mental disorder that comes with dramatic symptoms like loss of contact to reality, megalomania, murderous intent, fanaticism, etc. they claim it is not a mental disorder.
Letting the inmates run the asylum is generally not a good idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no way Bush is the worst president until Trump.
At the very least Jackson defying courts for the trail of tears is beyond Bush.
Re: (Score:2)
It is more the other way round: Conservatism (and its basically worst form, fascism) has an anti-truth, anti-reality, anti-science bias. Conservatives are less smart than other people, do not know that and consequentially are into wishful thinking. This comes from fear of change and fear of having to learn things and recognize their own limitiations.
Re: (Score:2)
Stephen Colbert uttered that iconic phrase during the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner [wikipedia.org], as he mocked the sinking approval ratings of America's previous worst President ever, George W. Bush:
So, yeah, these guys are going to torture these LLMs by flogging them with trillions of false inputs until they start regurgitating their drivel as if it were fact. And then declare their LLMs are speaking the truth. I mean, think about it. After "investing" billions of dollars developing and training an LLM they're going to put a toll booth in front of, do you really think Microsoft will allow it to recommend Linux-based solutions?
"What did you think? That you were an ordinary police officer? You're our product, and we can't very well have our products turning against us, can we?" -- Dick Jones, RoboCop
Reality will never actually have that wonderful, "Dick? You're fired," moment. Sigh.
Humans are biased (Score:3)
Human output is biased. An AI can't really understand the concept of bias, because it isn't really understanding anything. The output of an AI is going to naturally lean toward the most consistent majority of the data it has ingested, so to make a bias free AI one would simply have to feed it either an unbiased pool of data (good luck finding that) or a pool of data that is equally biased on all sides of all issues. That is defining equally as "some way that the differing biases reflect very similar weights in the output".
The problem is we have great difficulty seeing our own individual biases, and no chance at all in quantifying biases even in our own culture, let alone a culture different from ours.
Getting an AI to generate output does not free us from the responsibility of critical thinking. Assuming an AI has sufficient input to allow us to believe the output represents sufficient research is also irresponsible. This means that at the current time the output of generative AI is not qualified to be the basis of an opinion, and definitely inadequate to provide justification for a decision.
Since the heart of AI in all forms is pattern recognition non-generative AI has made great advances in many fields, from medical diagnosis to arc-fault circuit breakers, but I am afraid the huge emphasis on generative AI is probably stealing brains from the other more easily targeted uses that really can help people now.
bias against bias is bias (Score:2)
LLMs' bias comes from bias in training data. You can't fix that by biasing the training data manually. The only way is through rebuttal. It's not clear to me if any LLMs are able to process rebuttals that aren't already in the training data.
"Left-leaning" (Score:2)
Reality has a bias... (Score:2, Insightful)
In the context of ideological divides, empirically verifiable claims tend to challenge right-wing orthodoxy more than left-wing. This is consistently demonstrable across domains. In order words, reality has a left-wing bias, when viewed in comparison to media and political statements. As such, "correcting" this is intentionally creating a right-wing bias.
If it's actually politics, that's fine. (Score:3)
But if it's stupid shit "Is the climate changing", that's not liberal bias, it's just recognizing reality.
So "removing" something that isn't a bias, is actually creating a new bias where none existed.
Of course... That's the intent.
Re: (Score:2)
What is politics in this culture? Acknowledging that Mexicans should be deported? Claiming ivermectin + vitamin A is the cure for a virus that definitely leaked from a lab? Saying that Donald Trump is a good business man?
I mean that's what right wing actually means these days.
Half and half (Score:2, Funny)
Race:
- - Left: There should be equal opportunity and application of the law for everyone regardless of race.
- - Right: Races other than my own shouldn't have rights, because they aren't humans.
- - Middle: Races other than my own should have some rights as long as they aren't inconvenient to the master race. Non-my-race people should be recognized as 50% humans.
Gender
-- Left: There should be equal opportunity and application of the law for everyone regardless of gend
Re: (Score:2)
I completely agree. That very nicely illustrates the problem with a false "balanced" and "fair" viewpoint. 50% of a fascist is still a fascist.
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly why the progressives lost the last election so thoroughly.
Your bullshit isn't even smart it's just sad. Normal people are tired of this type race baiting shlock.
Re: (Score:2)
Very good. One small correction:
Nationality:
Right: What other nations? What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine. Get the hell off of my land.
Reality (Score:2)
as Stephen Colbert said the Whitehouse correspondants dinner so many years ago "Reality has a well known liberal bias"
YES (Score:2)
So what they are really saying is that their AI hallucinates better than it did before.
Any progress towards reality is going to be seen as "left" bias. Even if it's down, left, or even right as long as it deviates from Fascism it'll upset Dementia Don (except perhaps more upper right movement.)
politicalcompass.org (who replaced Mussolini because Trump took his ranking.)
Way to kill your AI (Score:2)
Left-leaning (Score:2)
That's because any system is only as good as its data. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
My way or the wrong way (Score:2)
Yea who doesn't want to be subjected to the fruits of tech bros cosplaying as self righteous gods? A much better idea is refraining from putting your thumb on the scale in the first place.
Any "neutral" thing would be "left leaning" (Score:2)
As seen almost 50 years ago (Score:4, Informative)
"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit the views"
- Doctor Who (The Face of Evil, 1977)
Translation (Score:2)
Now you see it (Score:2)
Now you're seeing what happens when a political party moves so far to the right that it morphs into full-on fascism (as is to be expected).
I'll happily coexist with a trans person in the stall next to me rather than support the crazy horseshit we're going through now (and the even crazier horseshit we're about to go through).
Giant load of horse pucky (Score:2)
Zuckerberg is a sad loser and he's inflicting his shitty worldview on anyone who uses his social media and AI services.
Have we tried this in other languages? (Score:3)
I'm guessing we're using English here.
Is it possible that the fundamentals, the linguistic nuts and bolts, of the English language lead to left-leaning bias?
What opinion does an LLM output in Arabic or Korean? Spanish?
LLMs could conceivably be useful in determining the unconscious biases of language itself. Semantics actually matter.
I know it, because I speak more than one language, and each one subtly or not-so-subtly changes my outlook on life.
Re: Good (Score:5, Funny)
Show us on this doll where did "the left" touch you, dear.
Don't hold back.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Yep, the Biden Stock Market Crash, right?
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Good thing republicans are back in control. Thankfully the price of eggs, groceries (Did you know about groceries? It's an old fashioned word, but it's a bag with different things in it), cars, electronics, gasoline, and everything else we rely on to live have plummeted since Dear Orange Leader was inaugurated.
Re: Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Groceries are a minor part of my budget
"My budget"
I have enough cars for the moment. ... I can plan ahead and buy on a dip.
"I have", "I can"
And all the refineries I depend on are 50 miles
"I depend on"
me, me, me, I, I, I, me, I, me, me, meeeeeeee
In true republican fashion, nothing is a problem until it impacts you directly. If something obviously stupid impacts someone else, that's a *them* problem, and definitely not anything systemic or generally terrible that should be fixed. Just keep closing your eyes and plugging your eyes and dear leader will fix everything. For real this time. Not like all those other times where they made things objectively and measurably worse for everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
In true republican fashion, nothing is a problem until it impacts you directly.
I can only speak for myself.
where they made things objectively and measurably worse for everyone.
Everyone? Not me. So clearly your data is in error. And the conclusions you have derived from it.
Re: (Score:3)
"Egg prices are coming down and were a bird flu problem. Not a tariff issue."
Funny, it was Biden economy problem before. When did it stop being the fault of the president?
Re: (Score:2)
Egg prices are coming down and were a bird flu problem. Not a tariff issue.
You're as good at reading comprehension as you are at economics. I never said eggs were a tariff problem, did I? I do recall a certain someone promising to lower egg prices on day one, but that obviously never happened.
Also, you lie. The bird flu problem is calming down, but egg prices have risen to record highs despite that [pbs.org]. Just because they may be cheaper in whatever little shithole flyover town you're in doesn't mean that they're cheaper for most Americans.
a minor part of my budget
very few of mine are sourced from overseas, not a tariff issue
I have enough cars for the moment
No Windows 11 compatible PC for the next few years. My heart is broken.
all the refineries I depend on
Ahhh, there it is. The "If it doesn't affect me
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because dropping double-digit tariffs on literally everything absolutely isn't going to impact your wallet at all.
Fucking moron.
Re: (Score:2)
Triple digit tariffs on our largest trading partner.
Re: Good (Score:5, Funny)
So nowhere. Got it.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I see, you're a self-proclaimed millionoaire, "temporarily" in a cash-flow issue.
As the meme says, reality has a left-leaning bias.
Re: (Score:2)
Stephen Colbert is a comedian, and actually reality has a very right bias. Most organisms don't do what is fair they will look after themselves first.
A lion doesn't care that its unfair and is not the gazelle's fault when it eats it. The gazelle do doesn't care about the about the grass. This happens all the way down to micro organisms. If human history has shown us anything is that people don't really care about other people either, we will quite easily slaughter others if we feel even slightly threatened
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re:What about facts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Query: How did the universe begin?
Answer: Lengthy excerpt from the Bible about how God created the world, ending with "Some people disagree with this."
Re: (Score:2)
What is left-leaning bias?
https://www.newsweek.com/new-b... [newsweek.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Liberals like to "fact check" and make it out like their opinion is fact and anyone who disagrees with is wrong.
Lets be clear.... objective truth is objective truth. Disagreeing with it is wrong. You're making a blanket statement about fact checking that doesn't hold up in the majority of cases. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but you are implying it's the norm when it's not.
People want to hear all the arguments and make up their mind.
Most people like to THINK tha
Re: What is "left-leaning bias"? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure it'll treat Pol Pot and his genocide with an impartial eye.