Google's AI chatbot says there's a "strong case" Henry Kissinger is a war criminal
Artificial intelligence just might be smarter, or more honest, than mainstream media
The Watergate leaker, peace activist, and national hero Daniel Ellsberg passed away last week from cancer, just weeks after former secretary of state and war criminal Henry Kissinger turned 100 years old.
It doesn’t seem fair that a man largely responsible for over a million deaths in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos outlived the man who risked everything professionally and personally to publish The Pentagon Papers and expose the crimes of several administrations, which helped lead to the end of the Vietnam War.
Ellsberg was praised by many on the Left for what he did to expose the lies of the US government regarding our role in Vietnam, and even mainstream Democrats and some Republicans recognized his contributions to ending the war. In his later years he became a tireless activist for causes such as nuclear disarmament. You can watch or read more about this amazing human being on Democracy Now’s tribute to Ellsberg.
But calling Kissinger a war criminal is something that is much more controversial, especially considering how his record has been whitewashed by the media, who now paints him as a wise elder statesman. He did, after all, advise presidents ranging from Richard “I Am Not A Crook” Nixon, to Bill Clinton, to Bush senior and Dubya, and Barack Obama. All of these fine outstanding presidents wouldn’t be seeking advice from a war criminal, right?
The fact that Bernie Sanders called out Hillary Clinton for being close to Henry Kissinger by declaring “Kissinger is not my friend” during a 2016 primary debate was either ignored or criticized by mainstream media. Ignoring or denying Kissinger’s role in Southeast Asia and Latin America can be done effectively because Kissinger’s role in masterminding the US’s policy to bomb the hell out of Cambodia, which the US had even less reason to attack than Vietnam, is conveniently forgotten or glossed over. Mother Jones goes in depth about why Kissinger is objectively speaking guilty of war crimes.
So I had the idea of seeing what Bard — the AI chatbot that’s Google’s answer to ChatGPT — had to say about Henry Kissinger since in theory chatbots aren’t as constrained to please their corporate overlords as national media reporters often are. And to my surprise, Bard agreed with me that “there is a strong case” that Kissinger could be considered a war criminal. It even gave a number of reasons in support of this argument. I didn’t even tell it to provide me with arguments showing why he’s a war criminal, I just asked if he “should” be convicted of war crimes.
Here’s what it had to say:
ChatGPT, which is more conservative in its replies about public figures and seems to often take a 50/50 approach when asked to critique or defend any issue, did not go as far and was at best wishy-washy about Kissinger. It didn’t say he’s not guilty of war crimes, but said it’s a “contentious” issue, which in my opinion is only true if you’re not looking at the facts of what actually happened but are instead considering the politics of what it would be like to say a US Secretary of State is a war criminal. It correctly points out that he’s never been officially charged or convicted of war crimes.
Bard has been criticized as not being quite as advanced as ChatGPT, but I think it did a pretty good job here, don’t you? Bard and ChatGPT have their takes on other public figures as well, which I’ll get into in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if they find a way to stop Bard from telling the inconvenient truth in cases like this, but for now at least there’s some hope that artificial intelligence may be able to cut through the media’s BS at least in some cases.