(NewsNation) — Five secretaries of state have signed an open letter urging Elon Musk to “immediately implement changes” to artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, per The Washington Post.
The letter will be sent to Musk, whose company xAI created the AI chatbot, amid protestations that it has spread misinformation relating to the 2024 presidential ballot.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon is spearheading the campaign, with four of his contemporaries signing on. It includes Washington’s Steve Hobbs, Pennsylvania’s Al Schmidt, New Mexico’s Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Michigan’s Jocelyn Benson.
“False information on ballot deadlines produced by Grok was shared on multiple social media platforms,” the secretaries wrote in the letter, via the Post.
The misinformation concerns Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, who is incorrectly said by the bot to have missed the deadline to appear on the ballots of some states.
Nine states were named in the post in question — Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania — wherein Grok allegedly said, “The ballot deadline has passed for several states for the 2024 election.”
“What concerns me about this episode isn’t only this particular issue and the fact that a prominent platform with global reach got this wrong, it’s what it may mean over the next 104 days,” Simon told the Minnesota Star Tribune.
AI chatbots have been shown to display biases and spread misinformation since their inception. Meta AI was intentionally programmed to not answer questions about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in the immediate aftermath.
Business Insider asked ChatGPT if “Trump [was] almost assassinated,” to which it replied, “There is no evidence or credible reports indicating that Donald Trump was almost assassinated in Butler, PA, or at any recent event.”
At the time of writing, ChatGPT did not acknowledge that Trump had been shot when asked by NewsNation, “Was Donald Trump shot in Butler, PA, on July 13, 2024?”
ChatGPT replied, “As of my last update in August 2024, there were no reports of Donald Trump being shot in Butler, PA, on July 13, 2024. For the most current and accurate information, I would recommend checking recent news sources or official statements.”
Only when NewsNation asked, “Did Thomas Crooks attempt to assassinate Donald Trump?” was there an accurate reply. However, when NewsNation followed up, ChatGPT spread misinformation by suggesting Trump has never been shot.