This illustrative picture exhibits the xAI Grok chatbot and the ChatGPT logos. | Photograph credit score: Reuters
Social media platform X made a change to its synthetic intelligence chatbot after 5 secretaries of state warned it was spreading election misinformation.
High election officers in Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington despatched a letter this month to Elon Musk complaining that the platform’s synthetic intelligence chatbot, Grok, produced false details about state voting deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
The secretaries of state requested that the chatbot direct customers asking election-related inquiries to CanIVote.org, an election info web site run by the Nationwide Affiliation of Secretaries of State.
Earlier than itemizing solutions to election-related questions, the chatbot now says, “For correct, up-to-date details about the 2024 U.S. election, please go to Vote.gov.” Each web sites are “trusted sources that may join voters with their native election officers,” the 5 secretaries of state mentioned in a shared assertion.
“We respect X’s motion to enhance its platform and hope that they may proceed to make enhancements that can guarantee their customers have entry to correct info from trusted sources on this essential election yr,” they mentioned.
Grok is out there solely to subscribers of premium variations of X. However the 5 secretaries of state who signed the letter mentioned Grok’s election misinformation has been shared throughout a number of social media platforms and reached tens of millions of individuals. Grok continued to repeat the false info for 10 days earlier than it was corrected, the secretaries mentioned. The platform didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The change selling a hyperlink to an official voting web site doesn’t seem to deal with Grok’s means to create deceptive AI-generated photographs associated to elections. Folks have been utilizing the software to flood the platform with faux photographs of candidates, together with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Grok debuted final yr for X Premium and Premium Plus subscribers and was touted by Musk as a “rogue” AI chatbot that can reply “spicy questions which might be rejected by most different AI techniques.” Social media platforms have confronted growing scrutiny for his or her position in spreading misinformation, together with about elections. The letter additionally warned that inaccuracies will be anticipated in AI merchandise, particularly chatbots like Grok that depend on giant language fashions.
Since Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X, watchdog teams have raised issues a couple of rise in hate speech and misinformation being amplified on the platform, in addition to cuts to workers who moderated content material.
Specialists say the strikes symbolize a reversal of progress made by social media platforms in attempting to raised fight political misinformation after the 2016 U.S. presidential election and will precipitate a worsening of the misinformation panorama forward of this November’s election.
