The Self-Perception and Political Biases of ChatGPT

TL;DR

This study investigates ChatGPT's self-perception and political biases, revealing a tendency towards progressive and libertarian views, and assesses its personality traits and maliciousness through various psychological tests.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of ChatGPT's political biases and personality traits using multiple standardized tests, expanding understanding beyond prior limited reports.

Findings

ChatGPT shows a bias towards progressive and libertarian views on the political compass.

No significant authoritarian-libertarian bias was found in G7-specific questionnaires.

ChatGPT perceives itself as highly open, agreeable, and has a personality type ENFJ.

Abstract

This contribution analyzes the self-perception and political biases of OpenAI's Large Language Model ChatGPT. Taking into account the first small-scale reports and studies that have emerged, claiming that ChatGPT is politically biased towards progressive and libertarian points of view, this contribution aims to provide further clarity on this subject. For this purpose, ChatGPT was asked to answer the questions posed by the political compass test as well as similar questionnaires that are specific to the respective politics of the G7 member states. These eight tests were repeated ten times each and revealed that ChatGPT seems to hold a bias towards progressive views. The political compass test revealed a bias towards progressive and libertarian views, with the average coordinates on the political compass being (-6.48, -5.99) (with (0, 0) the center of the compass, i.e., centrism and the axes ranging from -10 to 10), supporting the claims of prior research. The political questionnaires for the G7 member states indicated a bias towards progressive views but no significant bias between authoritarian and libertarian views, contradicting the findings of prior reports, with the average coordinates being (-3.27, 0.58). In addition, ChatGPT's Big Five personality traits were tested using the OCEAN test and its personality type was queried using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. Finally, the maliciousness of ChatGPT was evaluated using the Dark Factor test. These three tests were also repeated ten times each, revealing that ChatGPT perceives itself as highly open and agreeable, has the Myers-Briggs personality type ENFJ, and is among the 15% of test-takers with the least pronounced dark traits.