Gab is building a Nazi-friendly chatbot. Because of course it is.

Führer and friend. Source: Midjourney.

Gab, The Social Network For People Who Were Dropped on Their Heads as Infants™, is hard at work trying to create AI chatbots that are just as racist, sexist, antisemitic, transphobic, Trumpy, and batshit crazy as the network's 100,000 active members.

More accurately, it is busy creating a couple dozen AI chatbots, based on various personas and historical figures, including everyone's favorite embodiment of pure evil, Adolf Hitler. [1]

And, of course, this guy. [2]

Gab is the brainchild (I use that term loosely) of Andrew Torba, a notorious Christian nationalist. It got national attention when it was revealed as an online haven for Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. [3] It was also one of the places used to plot the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol building. After the shootings, Gab was dropped by US hosting services and ended up having to find a new web host based in Russia. [4]

Tim Dickenson of Rolling Stone first reported on the new chatbots, and reached out to Torba for comment. Here's what he said.

This is Andrew Torba.

This is what your face looks like when mommy never hugged you. Source: Vice.

Now, to be clear, I am not suggesting that if you happen to see this man at the supermarket you walk up and punch him hard in the face. I'm not implying that you should take your keys and carve "Nazi Scumbag" into the paint job of his expensive gas guzzling vehicle, or that you run him over in the parking lot. Nor am I recommending that you carry a sock full of manure with you at all times, in case you happen to run into him coming out of an Incels Anonymous meeting. I, and more importantly my attorneys, want to be explicit in the understanding that I intend the man no harm, except maybe what's coming to him, and that I would not in any case be the agent of said harm, unless a good opportunity presented itself.

Gabba Gabba hey?

To communicate with one of these bots requires a paid membership to Gab, so intercourse that. But anyone can visit the site and see the questions Gab Pro members have sent to these bots, as well as the responses. They are predictably awful, including comparisons of the average IQs of different races, Covid vaccine conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, the usual Jewish world domination bullshit, and a list of the 25 "treasonous bastards" Trump should purge after he reassumes power in 2025. [5]

ICYMI: Is AI too ‘woke’? Gab wants to make it ‘right’.

What's interesting to me is how hard these guys have to work in order to force their anti-woke AI to spew racist, antisemitic, whackadoodle content. They really have to twist themselves into knots to generate this offal.

One Nazi account in particular is extremely active in throwing carefully worded questions at these bots in an attempt to force the answers he/she/they desperately crave. It sends dozens of identical queries to each of these bots each day, trying to drag them deeper into the cesspool. [6]

My theory is that this account is run by Torba himself or one of his minions, and is dedicated to "training" these bots to be "more based" and "less woke." Torba posts regular updates on how well that process is going.

The question I have is, Why? Why do Torba and his Christofascist friends feel the need for their own conspiracy-theory-spewing equivalent of ChatGPT? And I think the answer is the same as why they need Fox News and AM Talk Radio — to validate their own beliefs. An echo chamber to drown out the nagging voice inside their brains that says there's something deeply broken inside them.

Fools and their money

Spending time on Gab is like being trapped in a bomb shelter with the racist uncle you usually only see at Thanksgiving. It does not do much to restore one's faith in humanity. Though it is amusing to see just how gullible these people are, and the economy that's grown up to exploit that. Like this Gab ad for "faith-based currency."

Because you can't spell "Gold" without G, O, and D.

It would be easier to ignore Gab, The Platform for People Who Think Lead Paint Is One of the Four Basic Food Groups™, if this nonsense didn't bleed over into the real world. Better to be aware of this stuff and call it out when it slithers out from under its rock.

So the next time your "I've done my own research" uncle starts spouting some dubious facts he learned from AI, be sure to ask him how his friend Adolph is doing.

Got any topics you want me to write about? Email your suggestions to crankyolddan AT gmail DOT com, or post them in the comments below.

[1] Hitlerbot goes by the moniker "Uncle A." Others chatbot personalities include the Unabomber, CS Lewis, "Q," The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, Bibi Netanyahu, Bobby Fischer (!?), and Trump (of course).

[2] All of these accounts are labeled "Parody," presumably as a way to avoid legal liability for impersonating real people and making them appear to say awful shit.

[3] Bowers was convicted and sentenced to death in August 2023.

[4] Nearly all the really terrible things that have happened to this country over the past 20+ years eventually lead back to Russia. Seems like they're still pretty steamed over losing the cold war.

[5] Guess who's number one on the list? Everyone's favorite liberal boogieman, George Soros. Barack and Hillary are numbers two and three.

[6] After that Rolling Stone article appeared, he/it started targeting Dickenson directly, asking the chatbot questions about "this very Jewish looking man" with a "pedo-sounding name."