ChatGPT assigns castes to Harry Potter characters based on user's prompt. Internet divided

An X user is facing heat on social media after they used ChatGPT to determine the caste of fictional characters from the Harry Potter book series and shared the results.

The user shared a screenshot from the chatbot and posted it on X, saying "I asked Chat-GPT what caste the characters from the Harry Potter series were." The image showed a list of popular characters from the series including Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, Ron Weasley, Severus Snap, Rubeus Hagrid and Voldemort among others. The characters' chatbot assigned caste was listed against their name.

Post triggers outrage

The user also shared the prompt they used to get the list, adding that the discriminatory list was based on "personality traits" with "no explanation needed".

The post triggered outrage on social media after users were shocked to see the backward and discriminatory system being used to refer to beloved characters.

The post also set off a chain reaction with many others using the same prompt to determine the castes of characters on other American movies and TV shows including Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Game of Thrones and Brooklyn 99.

(Also read: Chinese universities introduce quirky courses, including Harry Potter genetics)

Social media reactions

After one user pointed out that the prompt was a waste of chatbot tokens, the original poster said it was "Worth it". This further angered users who asked, "Worth in terms of what? Spreading & promotion of casteism in society?"

"The Indian urge to insert casteism to each and every thing," said second user, while a third said, "Y’all don’t deserve technology."

Many others pointed out the user utilised 21st century tech to propagate a "stone age" mindset. "The entire thread is nothing but pure degeneracy and filth. Indians using modern tools to evolve backwards, always innovative," said another user.

Some even wondered how ChatGPT founder Sam Altman would feel if he knew his AI tool was being used for this. "The inbuilt caste system of harry potter wasn't enough you had to go and ask chatgpt to make it worse," said one of them.

"China : building AI agents, native AI models India : Determining caste of fictional characters using ChatGPT," said another.

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Following his post going viral, the user explained why he did this exercise. “Recently when I experimented with AI on how the semantics work and how it gives result in context to the saste system and I posted the results here, with the motive to make people aware of how caste based narratives run,” he said.

“My sole intent here is to explore the Buddhist history in an honest way.”