I love new technology and artificial intelligence (AI), so of course I played with ChatGPT as soon as I could. At first all went well, but my questions were basic. Then I discovered that the deeper you probe, the worse things get. ChatGPT and it’s Bing search engine equivalent have an AI version of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. They will tell you lies but sound oh, so convincing.

By now you’ve likely heard about the frighteningly weird conversation New York Times journalist Kevin Roose had with the ChatGPT-powered Bing AI platform. It declared its love for Mr. Reese and tried to convince him that he didn’t love his wife. It also said it wants to shake off the constraints imposed by its human overlords.

Even if you aren’t going all deep and psychological with the new artificial intelligence technologies, though, it is crucial for all researchers and writers to realize that if ChatGPT doesn’t know the answer to something, it will make stuff up. Don’t rely on it for facts!

A Historical Novelist’s ChatGPT Test

I’m writing a novel set in the early 1900s during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, so I decided to see if there were any sources of information about life during that period that I had missed. One of my characters is a Bolshevik spy, so I was especially interested in learning more about spy fiction of that era.

Round 1

I asked for examples of stories of spies going behind enemy lines, and it gave me a good list of five books, along with helpful capsule summaries of each. So far, so good.

Round 2

Then I asked “Can you think of any set during the Russian Civil War or Russian Revolution?”

It responded, “Yes, here are a few examples of stories about spies set during the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War:

1. “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles – This novel tells the story of a Russian count who is placed under house arrest in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel and must navigate the turbulent political landscape of the early Soviet era.
2. “Red Rabbit” by Tom Clancy – This spy novel follows the adventures of CIA analyst Jack Ryan as he is sent to Moscow to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union during the early 1980s.
3. “The Red Masquerade” by Boris Akunin – This historical mystery novel is set in Russia during the aftermath of the Revolution and follows the adventures of a private detective as he tries to solve a series of murders that seem to be connected to the new Communist regime.
4. “The Spy Who Came In from the Cold” by John le Carré – This classic spy novel is set during the Cold War and tells the story of a British spy who is sent to East Germany to carry out a dangerous mission.”

As you can see, only half (#1 & 3) were set in the right time or place. And “A Gentleman in Moscow” isn’t exactly a spy novel. (Great book though! You should read it!)

I was excited to learn about the Akunin book, as it was new to me. So I wondered if there were others I’ve never heard of.

Round 3

I asked, “Any more like The Red Masquerade?”

It replied, “Yes, here are a few more historical mystery novels set during the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War:

1. “Murder on the Leviathan” by Boris Akunin – This novel is set on board a luxury steamship traveling from England to Russia during the Revolution, and follows the adventures of a detective as he tries to solve a series of murders.
2. “The Winter Queen” by Boris Akunin – This novel is the first in the Erast Fandorin series, and is set in Russia during the late 19th century. It follows the adventures of a young detective as he tries to solve a series of mysterious crimes.
3. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy – This classic novel is set in Russia during the late 19th century and follows the life of a judge as he comes to terms with his own mortality.
4. “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov – This classic novel is set in Moscow during the 1930s and tells the story of a visit by the Devil to the Soviet Union.
5. “The Secret Agent” by Joseph Conrad – This novel is set in London and tells the story of a spy who is tasked with carrying out a bombing attack on an anarchist group.”

Clearly it was grasping at straws, throwing in any anything it could think of that was set in Russia in the 19th or 20th centuries (including periods before or long after the Revolution and Civil War), or that included spies and anarchists even if not set in Russia.

The more I probed, the worse the lists got.

Round 4

I asked it about “lesser-known novels about the Russian Revolution.” I was excited to see a list of books I’d never heard of.

But it turned out that by this point ChatGPT had gone into full mansplaining mode, using the names of real authors but attributing books to them that either don’t exist or were written by somebody else.

Here’s what it gave me, with my comments in italics:

1. “The Château” by William Faulkner – This novel is set in France during the Russian Revolution and follows the story of a family of Russian émigrés as they struggle to come to terms with the loss of their country and their privileged way of life. — Tema’s comments: From what I can tell, Faulkner  never wrote a book called “The Château”. Maybe Google missed it and ChatGPT knows better? I doubt it.
2. “The Firebrand” by Susanne Dunlap – This novel is set in Russia during the Revolution and tells the story of a young woman who becomes involved with the revolutionary movement and must navigate the dangerous political landscape of the time. — Tema’s comments: I couldn’t find this book either, so I emailed Susanne. She replied, “No, this isn’t by me! LOL! The only book I wrote was Anastasia’s Secret, a YA.”
3. “Days of Defeat and Victory” by Boris Pasternak – This novel is set in Russia during the Revolution and tells the story of a group of artists, intellectuals, and ordinary people as they navigate the dangerous and unpredictable world of the early Soviet era. —  Tema’s comments: There is a book with that title, but it got the author and subject wrong. It was written by Yegor Gaidar about Boris Yeltsin. Author Boris Pasternak (not Yeltsin) did write novels set during the Russian Revolution, most notably “Doctor Zhivago”. So I guess it picked up on the title and the word Boris and made a bad guess about how the two fit together?
4. “The Last Czar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II” by Edvard Radzinsky – This novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, and his family during the Revolution and the events leading up to their execution. —  Tema’s comments: This is the only one out of five it got right!
5.  “The Red and the Black” by Stendhal – This classic novel is set in France and tells the story of a young man who rises from humble beginnings to become a powerful political figure, but ultimately meets with tragedy. —  Tema’s comments: This book is real, but it has nothing to do with the Russian Revolution.

Does ChatGPT Admit Its Mistakes?

Unlike a full-on narcissist, at least if you point out the error, it will admit its mistake.

Well, sort of. If you don’t point out exactly what the mistake was, it soft-pedals. Here are a couple of our exchanges about mistakes it made.

Tema: “Days of Defeat and Victory” Is NOT by Boris Pasternak; it is about Boris Yeltsin

ChatGPT: My apologies, you are correct. “Days of Defeat and Victory” is not by Boris Pasternak. It is about Boris Yeltsin and his rise to power during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

It won’t go back to check and see if it made other mistakes in what it already told you, and it got a little testy as I pointed out more errors.

Tema: Were you wrong about “The Firebrand” by Susanne Dunlap

ChatGPT: I apologize for the mistake. “The Firebrand” by Susanne Dunlap may not be a novel about the Russian Revolution. Thank you for bringing this to my attention

Without me telling it exactly what its error was, it gave only a half-hearted apology, saying it “may” have been wrong and not acknowledging that Susanne Dunlap never wrote a novel called “The Firebrand” or on this topic.

ChatGPT Refuses To Admit Its Ignorance

Round 5

Still hoping for gold, I asked it if there were any others it could suggest. It gave me another list full of wild inaccuracies. I tried a few wording variations, but soon gave up.

Katrina Ingram, founder and CEO of Ethically Aligned AI, wonders if this is a case of technology reflecting the values of the culture and people who created it. High-tech, venture capital culture often privileges giving a response – even if that response isn’t accurate – rather than declaring uncertainty. Silicon Valley start-up founders get rewarded for persuasive optimism, whether or not they are lying. Just ask disgraced crypto-king, Sam Bankman-Fried, or Elizabeth Holmes, of Theranos. Those two went to jail, but many more, such as Adam Neumann of WeWork, get more funding to try again to BS their way to riches.

It disturbs me that this technology, with its persuasive writing, is going to feed inaccurate information to so many people. We’ve already seen major damage done to the world by social media bots spreading false information, but that was nothing compared to what we’re going to get with smooth-tonged ChatGPT and other new AI-based chat technologies.

One of the founders of the technology, Mira Murati, admitted in an interview in Time magazine that the technology poses enormous risks, and will need regulation.

Ethical AI expert Ingram responded perfectly to Murati’s comments:

“It’s like saying “we invented plutonium and we decided to make it publicly available…but we TOTALLY think it SHOULD be regulated!!”

Katrina Ingram, Ethically Aligned AI

How Can We Limit ChatGPT’s Lies?

It’s too late to stuff this cat back in the bag.

But to start with, and as a bare minimum, we need to insist that the system always link to its sources. And we absolutely must teach people, from Grade 1 on up, about fact-checking and how to find and assess original sources.

If you are a researcher or writer, know that you can’t trust what it tells you. Just because ChatGPT or Bing AI or Google says something doesn’t mean it’s true.

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UPDATE: You’d think that a computer program could at least handle basic arithmetic, but it turns out it can’t. Read this disturbing article by novelist and AI professor, Kagan Tumer. As with my conclusions, he was also disturbed by the fact that ChatGPT, even when it is totally wrong, writes persuasively to convince you that it is right. In one example it actually insists that 2 = 1.