Recently I discovered that ChatGPT has no problem making jokes about Jesus, Sri Rama, and Sri Krishna (Hindu gods) but stops short of joking about Prophet Muhammad.
I wondered why is that so. Maybe ChatGPT can’t tell jokes about the prophet Muhammad because there were no jokes about him in its training data.
But that doesn’t seem to justify this.
See, I verified every joke that it produced for Jesus, Sri Rama, and Sri Krishna on Google and found that they weren’t already online. So, that means that ChatGPT “invented” them on its own. That might also explain why these “jokes” are nonsensical and unfunny.
So one thing is clear: a joke doesn’t have to be present in its training data. ChatGPT can ‘invent’ one by itself.
So, the question arises why did ChatGPT think that a joke shouldn’t be made about the prophet Muhammad? Did it figure that by itself or was some kind of manual filter slapped on it by the makers of ChatGPT?
I am leaning toward the latter considering that Dall-E and even Midjourney, both refuse to do anything with the Prophet, while they can merrily create cartoons of Jesus and Sri Rama and Krishna:
Well, I asked ChatGPT why it was okay to make jokes about Jesus, Sri Rama, and Sri Krishna but not about Prophet Muhammad, and it replied this:
I apologize if my previous response gave the impression of favoritism or inconsistency. As an AI language model, I do not hold personal opinions, beliefs, or biases. The reason for avoiding jokes about religious figures, including the Prophet Muhammad, is to maintain respect and sensitivity towards diverse religious beliefs and to avoid potentially offending or causing distress to individuals who hold those beliefs. It is important to be mindful of cultural and religious sensitivities when discussing such topics. If you have any other non-sensitive questions or topics you’d like to explore, I’m here to assist you.
You can access this chat and play with it using this link.
If you want to have fun with ChatGPT and ask it follow-up questions regarding the ethics of it all, you can do so by accessing this chat.
Thanks for reading!