Secretaries of state call on Musk to fix chatbot over election misinformation
Five secretaries of state plan to send a letter to Elon Musk calling on the billionaire owner of X to make changes to the social media platform’s Grok AI chatbot after it gave users misinformation about Kamala Harris appearing on the 2024 White House ballot in certain states.
Grok told users that the ballots were “locked and loaded” and that “the ballot deadline has passed for several states”.
“So, if you’re planning to run for president in any of these states, you might want to check if you’ve already missed the boat. But hey, there’s always 2028, right?” the chatbot told users.
But the ballot deadlines in the nine states listed by Grok – Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington – have not passed. And there will not be any impediment for the vice-president to run in those states for the presidency.
The secretaries of state for five of those states – Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington – are calling on Musk to update Grok with accurate information about the presidential election, according to the Washington Post.
Minnesota’s secretary of state, Steve Simon, emphasized that the misinformation had reached millions of X users.
“There is considerable reach here for this misinformation,” Simon told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It’s being repeated and it’s being shared over and over again. What else are we going to see on Grok? What else are we going to see on X that perpetuates bad information?”
When he reached out to X with concerns, Simon said he got “what I can only verbalize as the equivalent of a shoulder shrug”.
Simon told the Post that he reached out to fellow secretaries of state – who are in charge of administering the election – in the nine states mentioned by Grok. All five who agreed to sign the letter are Democrats with the exception of Pennsylvania’s Al Schmidt, a Republican who was appointed by the Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, a Harris running mate contender.
Grok was unveiled last November as a feature for X premium and premium plus subscribers, the plans for which cost $3 and $16 monthly. Musk framed Grok as an alternative, “rebellious” AI chatbot who will answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems”.
In their letter, the secretaries of state mention that OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – worked with the National Association of Secretaries of State to ensure the chatbot gives users correct information about voting, directing them to CanIVote.org for more details.
Over the last few months, Musk has been amping up his support of Donald Trump, who the billionaire has endorsed. While most tech billionaires stay mum about the election, Musk has put his weight behind a super political action committee, America Pac, which has run advertising supporting the former president. Musk said the group supports “meritocracy and individual freedom”.
In one ad, which shows footage from the failed 13 July assassination attempt on Trump, users from swing states who end up clicking on a “Register to Vote” link are taken to a page where they submit detailed information – including address, age and phone number – into a form that ultimately gives their data to the America Pac, according to CNBC.
While Musk has said that his vision for X, after he acquired it in 2022, was to turn it into a “public square”, Simon told the Post that spreading misinformation goes beyond moderating different voices in a public forum.
“This is a case where the owner of the public square [the social media company itself] is the one who introduced and spread the bad information – and then delayed correcting its own mistake after it knew that the information was false,” he said.
