The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has come under immense scrutiny after it was accused of being the target of an AI-driven smear campaign backed by the OpenAI’s chatbot platform, ChatGPT. All of this began when Binance executive Patrick Hillman confronted ChatGPT over its claims that Binance’s co-founder, Cheng Zhao, was a part of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) back in the 90s.
Hillman reached out to Fortune magazine about the ordeal, and divulged that the platform had faced multiple inquiries from numerous congressional offices regarding the matter. As if that wasn’t enough, there were calls and questions regarding the existence of a social media platform built by CZ for the Chinese government.
Hillman was quick to deny the allegations, given that all of them were tied to a fake LinkedIn profile attributed to CZ and even a non existent Forbes article. To get to the bottom of the truth, Hillman decided to directly question ChatGPT over the matter. On being asked if CZ was truly associated with the National Petroleum Corporation youth league committee back in the 90s; ChatGPT replied in the affirmative, as per the public information they had access to.
The PTT platform further put forward that its claims were circumstantial, but were verified through CZ’s ‘interview’ with Forbes in which he had allegedly mentioned his former association with the CNPC. The spot’s oddity came up when the Forbes link showed up empty, which could only mean that the article didn’t exist in the first place. This gave obvious jitters to Hillman, who then distanced himself from any such information.
This incident goes to show that it is important to exercise caution and conduct careful research before believing any information that comes out on the internet, especially when it comes to AI-based platforms like ChatGPT.
Binance is one of the top crypto exchanges globally, operating in over 180 countries and regions with over 35 million users. Founded in 2017, the company has quickly risen to the summit of the crypto universe. Changpeng Zhao or CZ as he is famously known, is Binance’s co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer. In a relatively short span of time, CZ has cemented his name as one of the business luminaries of the 21st century. He has a net worth of around 2.6 billion USD in 2020.
ChatGPT is an AI-based natural language platform built on Open21’s advanced GPT-2 model-based text generator. The chatbot was designed to help people automatically generate relevant and timely content as needed. However, with the truth of this particular story in question, one needs to be extra cautious when dealing with chat AI based platforms.
