Elon Musk under pressure to stop X's AI feature from spreading false election information about Kamala Harris
Elon Musk received a letter from five state secretaries urging immediate changes to Grok, X's AI chatbot, after it spread false election information
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- The secretaries asked Musk to "immediately implement changes to X's AI Search Assistant, Grok."
- After Biden dropped out, Grok said that crucial ballot deadlines had passed in 9 states.
- X did not correct the error for one week and the misinformation reached millions.
Five secretaries of state penned a letter to Elon Musk on Monday morning, asking him to fix his AI chatbot after it sent false election information to millions of Americans. Musk must "immediately implement changes to X's AI Search Assistant, Grok, to ensure voters can have accurate information in this critical election year," the letter read.
A mere few hours after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Grok indicated that Kamala Harris was not eligible to be on the 2024 presidential ballot in nine states. According to the letter, Grok told users, "The ballot deadline has passed for several states for the 2024 election. It then listed the nine supposed states: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.
In reality, the deadline had not passed in any of the states. If it had, Harris could not have taken Biden's place on the ballot.
Steve Simon, the secretary of state in Minnesota, led the effort to write the letter, the Washington Post reported. Though he reached out to his counterparts in all nine states, only four others signed on, including Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, and Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico. Apart from Schmidt, all of the signatories are Democrats. Together, they represent 37 million constituents.
Only Premium and Premium+ subscribers can access Grok, but X users shared the false information in various posts, meaning that it reached millions of people. Grok continued to spread the information for one week.
In a statement to the Post, Simon likened X's response to the error to a "shoulder shrug. Dismissive and detached." To address the issue, the secretaries urged Musk to "immediately adopt a policy of directing Grok users to CanIVote.org when asked about elections in the U.S." OpenAI, the company that runs ChatGPT, sends users to the nonpartisan website when they ask election-related questions.
Musk said he created Grok last year as an anti-woke AI Chatbot and antidote to what he sees as other chatbots' liberal slants. He has shared false information on X himself and recently came under fire for posting a deepfake video of Harris.
This election, Musk and other Silicon Valley stars have become more vocal in their support for Donald Trump and JD Vance, once a venture capitalist himself. So far, Musk has not addressed the most recent controversy.
A representative for X didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.