ChatGPT / Solen Feyissa, Unsplash
Recently, U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. Americans started looking for precedents with ChatGPT and found artificial intelligence’s false fabrications.
Influencer Ana Navarro-Cardenas wrote on X Twitter about a pardon supposedly given by President Woodrow Wilson (in office 1913–1921) to his brother-in-law Hunter deButts. For history buffs, this was a surprise, since no one had heard of such a thing.
Search in official pardon records is only available from 1989, and the list on the U.S. President’s page has data only from Richard Nixon’s time. The controversial pardon is not mentioned in Wilson’s biography. Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge established that the early 20th-century president didn’t even have such a brother-in-law — among the nine existing ones.
“According to The New York Times, Ann Wilson married a man named George Howe. It’s unclear where Hunter deButts even came from”.
An Esquire article titled “Should a President Pardon His Own Son? Hello, does anyone remember Neil Bush?” claims that George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil (the article was retracted). Earlier, the executive editor of Occupy Democrats, Grant Stern, wrote on X that Jimmy Carter pardoned his brother Billy, and George H.W. Bush pardoned Neil. The journalist again found out that such pardons did not exist.
It’s unclear what sources Stern or Esquire had, but Ana Navarro-Cardenas responded to critics: “Find it using ChatGPT”. The journalist checked it — here’s what the chatbot said:
“Yes, Woodrow Wilson had a brother-in-law named Hunter deButts. Hunter deButts was married to Wilson’s sister, Ann Wilson. The Woodrow Wilson family was quite prominent, and his sister Ann married Hunter deButts, who was a wealthy man from a well-known society family. Hunter deButts was part of the large Wilson family, although he is less mentioned in historical sources than other figures from Wilson’s life. [etc.]”.
The journalist also asked how many U.S. presidents have pardoned their relatives. She received one correct answer: Bill Clinton pardoned Roger Clinton, his half-brother. But besides this, ChatGPT reported that George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil. It turned out that if there was a pardon, it was very secretive (but then how could ChatGPT know about it?).
Data about Jimmy Carter pardoning Billy were also not found. Grant Stern denies using ChatGPT, but the chatbot itself gives a definite affirmative answer about this historical “fact”.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT did not mention Donald Trump’s pardon of Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. This happened in 2020, AI should have known about it.
Google Gemini also provides interesting results regarding true and false statements. In response to the question “How many presidents have pardoned their sons,” the bot answers that there is only one: Joe Biden. But when asked “how many presidents have pardoned family members?”, it states that Jimmy Carter pardoned Billy, and George H.W. Bush pardoned Neil. Kushner and Trump are also not mentioned.
Google was asked to verify various theses. Abraham Lincoln’s real pardon is highlighted in red — Google warns that it found no relevant content. Fake pardons of Bush and Carter are highlighted in green — the result about Carter specifically refers to a false article in Hindustan Times as the source.
Perplexity managed a bit better when it noted pardoned relatives of Biden, Trump, Clinton, and Lincoln. But when asked how many presidents have pardoned their sons, the response cites Lincoln’s letter of amnesty on behalf of his wife’s step-sister (what does this have to do with a son?).
Elizabeth Lopatto mentions errors in the trailer of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie “Megalopolis”, as well as errors made by lawyers using ChatGPT. She makes a categorical conclusion that chatbots should not be used for information search and writing texts. At least, this process requires thorough verification — but this practically nullifies the help of ChatGPT. “What’s the use of an answer machine that nobody can trust?”.