'QuitGPT' campaign takes off after ties to Donald Trump are revealed
While it might have been the AI tool to take over the world over three years ago, many people are now wanting to sever ties with ChatGPT after links to US President Donald Trump were revealed.
There are countless reasons why someone might want to stop using ChatGPT, as beyond the broader opposition from an environmental or ethical perspective there are also issues that long-time users have had with newer models, alongside persistent sycophancy and hallucinations.
The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for many appears to be political, however, as links to President Donald Trump have been revealed amid outrage against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Epstein files.
As shared by MIT Technology Review, this desire to cancel ChatGPT has manifested itself within a campaign known as 'QuitGPT', where both paid subscribers and free users are cutting the popular AI chatbot out of their lives in an organized movement, sending a message to those in power.
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Outlining the specifics for targeting this particular model over other options, the campaign's website notes that OpenAI president Greg Brockman donated $25 million to Trump's super PAC MAGA Inc last year, alongside a $1 million donation from co-founder and CEO Sam Altman to the president's inauguration fund, noting this to be 26 times more than any other AI company.
Additionally, the resume screening tool used by ICE is powered by GPT-4, and they point out that the company has spent $50 million to prevent individual states from regulating AI.
"They're cozying up to Trump while ICE is killing Americans and the Department of Justice is trying to take over elections," the campaign argues, adding that "if we make an example of ChatGPT, we can send a clear signal to ICE enablers that their actions will not go unpunished."
More than 700,000 people have officially signed up to take part in the boycott against ChatGPT, with many more sharing their support across social media, but there are plenty that believe that it's still not going far enough.
"QuitAI should be the campaign," argues one commenter on Reddit discussing the organized action. "This just feels like another AI company trying to take out the competition."
While QuitGPT does urge people not to use Elon Musk's Grok, it suggests that people opt for a number of open source alternatives to ChatGPT, alongside suggesting Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude — with both companies receiving significant funding from the Trump administration, alongside a $1 million donation from Google to the inauguration fund.