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Comment by sodafountan | Hacker News Reader

I just asked ChatGPT. "Based on everything I've asked, how old do you think I am?" It was dead-on with its answer. It guessed 30-35. I'm 32.

That was just a spur-of-the-moment question. I've been using ChatGPT for over six months now.

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>It was dead-on with its answer. It guessed 30-35. I'm 32.

Horoscopes must feel like literal magic to you.

I'm not familiar with Horoscopes.

They're all about saying things that apply broadly enough, in a way that makes them seem specific, in order to make people go "Wow, that's dead-on!" An example:

  You’ve recently been feeling a quiet tension between wanting stability and craving some kind of change. On the surface, things look mostly under control, but there’s a sense that one small adjustment—something you’ve been postponing—could shift your mood more than you expect.

See also: Cold Reading

(What I'm saying is calling 30-35 "dead on" makes you look like somebody who is easily impressed by parlour tricks)

That doesn't make any sense.

I only asked ChatGPT to guess my age because I'm assuming OpenAI is going to have the LLM assume your age going forward, which is an interesting use of the technology. Rather than ask up front, it just guesses based on the utilization of the tool. I understand "dead-on" may have been the wrong use of the term, let's just say it was fairly accurate...

I probably would be impressed by a good parlour trick or an accurate horoscope. Lmao

But did it tell on what basis it made that assumption?

Yes, it listed a few of my past questions as reference points. I had asked some questions about Nintendo 64/Dreamcast and Gamecube games. It also used information I had asked it about programming languages and some work-related questions to guess my age.

I don't know how OpenAI plans to do this going forward, just quickly read the article and figured that might be a good question to ask ChatGPT.

Edit: I just followed that up with, "Based on everything I've asked, what gender am I?" It refused to answer, stating it wouldn't assume my gender and treats me as gender neutral.

So I guess it's ok for an AI agent to assume your age, but not your gender... ?

I don't really feel like diving into the ethics of OpenAI at the moment lol.

If they are shielding you giving back answers, doesn’t mean there is a lot of profiling going on behind the screens of all big tech. How close are they to behavioral monitoring?

Age is a must. Gender is too easy. You know what the problem is? These systems know your ethnicity and religion.

I would assume that it would be able to make those assumptions based on the questions you ask it, but OpenAI would never allow an LLM to answer those types of inquiries. That would obviously cross some boundaries.

I find it strange that having it assume your age isn't off limits - according to the article, it's about to become a major feature.

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