Can you drop me a line at michael.schade@openai.com with more info and your account email? I'll take a look. And yes, that bot has to go—many improvements coming on that front!
Does OpenAI block Saudi or does Saudi block ChatGPT? When I lived there, many many websites were blocked by Saudi, particularly anything to do with Islam. If OpenAI is blocking Saudi, it may be legal compliance as OpenAI is likely not yet confident in their ability to filter conversations about religion in regions where that would be effectively banned.
Saudi is currently working very, very hard to limit the spread and influence of extremism within their borders, so they're careful about which resources for learning about islam are available.
Both Saudi and OpenAI seem to be ultra-aggressive about blocking VPN's such as Mullvad. There are other options for getting your own servers/VPNs that you can put OpenVPN on. When I lived in Saudi I did that, and it got around 100% of the most aggressive internet filters.
OpenAI does not offer its services in Saudi Arabia. Saudis are blocked from registering. It's not a government block which works entirely differently and shows you a page explaining that it is blocked.
If it's blocked for political reasons I'd like to understand why, so we can understand their values that allow all those countries on the list but not Saudi.
I was able to register with a US phone number and VPN, but I'm also blocked from actually paying to get an API key.
I find the worry about compliance a thin excuse since a larger company like Microsoft that does have presence in the country offers Bing without issue. Same with SnapChat which has signifianct Saudi investmnet.
I believe it's some kind of misguided political activism.
You've insinuated that any block done by OpenAI would be for political reasons, but would you accept that perhaps they feel they would be breaking law in Saudi Arabia? So, "legal reasons", rather than political.
Does Bing offer their chat AI in Saudi? Or just search results. Search results are easy to filter and have a whole framework for compliance in GCC countries that is relatively straightforward to follow.
My insinuation of a political reason come after a glaring exclusion and complete silence when asked. Answering the question would help clarify their position.
Yes I'm talking about Bing's chat AI. There is absolutely no indication or precedent for legal concern.
I know people who work at Saudi Authority for Data and AI. They have no idea why we're blocked, while UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman can use it.
They've been holding regular AI talks and hackathons to grow the local talent. But we don't have access to GPT4 API and it's holding us back.
Having lived there, and lived in the homes of Saudis, I'd personally dispute that the dominant version of Islam there is extremist. I'm non-religious though both my parents were raised Christian and occasionally the Bible was read at my dinner table at home in the Midwest.
By and large, the Saudis I talked with were all very opposed to political/religious/militaristic violence. There was, however, a noticeably strong bias towards homophobia, especially if the context was religious discussion. I did meet a few people with extremist religious views, but they were <1% from my experience.
Overall I've met a higher % of fellow Americans who, unprompted in casual conversations or professional settings, share extremist views with me like "We should nuke ____ and wipe out every last person in the country" or "Shia Muslims are universally the most evil people on the planet", etc. Even extremist Saudis have not expressed similar sentiments to me except occasionally against Zionist Israelites (after poking, they'll always reduce it to just the zionists, not pro-palestinian / anti-zionist Israelis), and sometimes the royal families of the GCC countries.
I was located in Dhahran / Al-Khobar / Dammam / Bahrain / Abu Dhabi / Dubai / Oman.
Don't state things like that factually unless you have some knowledge in that field or at least first hand experience. Regurgitating your impression from second hand stories and media narratives is how you stereotype and other people.
