Apu Gomes
Elon Musk's social media site X updated its AI chatbot after secretaries of state accused it of spreading election misinformation.
At the beginning of August, five secretaries of state wrote Musk a letter insisting that he "immediately implement changes to X's AI Search Assistant, Grok." After Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Grok was incorrectly telling users that Kamala Harris was ineligible to appear on ballots in nine states.
The secretaries of states asked Musk to "immediately adopt a policy of directing Grok users to CanIVote.org when asked about elections in the U.S."
X has since made some changes to Grok, the Associated Press reports. Now, when users ask questions about the election, Grok says, "For accurate and up-to-date information about the 2024, U.S. Elections, please visit Vote.gov." X did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
In a statement responding to the change, the secretaries of state celebrated the update and said that both CanIVote.org and Vote.gov are "trustworthy resources that can connect voters with their local election officials."
The news comes as another tech mogul, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, plans to step back from supporting election safety. In a letter to the Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that he will not fund election infrastructure as he did in 2020.
Four years ago, Zuckerberg and his wife donated upwards of $400 million to nonpartisan organizations that helped run elections amid the pandemic, much to the ire of some Republicans that claim the money helped Democrats. There is no indication that those claims are true, but Zuckerberg is nonetheless changing course.
"Despite the analysis I've seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other," Zuckerberg wrote. "My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another—or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don't plan on making a similar contribution this cycle."
