Fun with ChatGPT? Just don't ask the wrong questions

AI is all at sea on the Barnett Formula and Karl Marx's anti-semitism

Photo by Aideal Hwa on Unsplash

Like every journalist on the planet, I have been testing out the new AI enabled search engine, ChatGPT. At least I think it is a search engine, I'm not quite sure what the technical gubbins is properly called, all I know is that it is supposed to take over from Google as the world's go to means of finding out stuff. And eventually write my columns for me (a ha).

There has been a lot of conspiracy talk on the interweb about Google manipulating its algorithms to signal its virtue to the world - promoting liberal-left voices and suppressing purveyors of “hate speech” which can be just about anyone to the right of The Guardian. I don't know about all that, but ChatGPT is supposed to be above it all. It sifts through the sum of human knowledge to come up with the unvarnished truth.So I thought I would try some awkward questions about cancel culture and Karl Marx.

But first of all I tested Deep Mind with the big issue of the moment in Scotland: How much subsidy does the Scottish Government enjoy through the infamous Barnett Formula? We know that through fiscal transfers from Westminster, Scotland has more to spend on devolved services like health and education than England. But just how much? Surely the Artificial Intelligence, which can answer complex maths problems in a moment, will have no trouble with this. It did.

“As of 2021, Scotland receives more per capita public spending from the UK government than the rest of the UK. According to the most recent figures from the UK Treasury, Scotland received £10,536 per person in public spending in 2019-2020, while the UK as a whole received £9,706 per person. This amounts to a difference of £830 per person, or 8.6% more per capita public spending in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK.”

That seems reasonable. 8.6%. But on Good Morning Scotland I had just heard a guy from the Institute for Fiscal Studies say that Scotland got 26% more per head in spending on devolved services. So I put that contradiction to Chat GTP: