Grok, which should not be confused with the AI startup Groq that raised more than $600 million this morning, has been spreading false information about Vice President Kamala Harris on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.
This claim was made in an open letter by five Secretaries of State addressed to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and X. The letter states that X’s AI-powered chatbot, Grok, incorrectly suggested that Harris is ineligible to appear on certain U.S. presidential ballots in 2024.
The letter, led by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and signed by Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, and Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico, urges Musk to “immediately implement changes to X’s AI search assistant, Grok, to ensure voters receive accurate information during this critical election year.”
On July 21, just hours after President Joe Biden announced he would suspend his presidential campaign, Grok began responding to questions about Harris’s eligibility with the misleading claim that the voter registration deadlines had passed in nine states: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.
In fact, the voter registration deadlines had not yet passed, but Grok’s misinformation spread widely, reaching millions of X users and beyond before being corrected on July 31, according to the letter.
“Although Grok is only available to X Premium and Premium+ subscribers and includes a disclaimer asking users to verify information, the false information about voter registration deadlines has been repeatedly captured and shared in multiple posts,” the Secretaries of State wrote.
Musk has faced criticism for how X has handled the moderation of political topics, as well as for stoking controversies himself.
Data suggests that X has significantly fewer moderation staff than other platforms, partly due to Musk cutting approximately 80% of the company’s engineers dedicated to trust and safety. Earlier this year, X promised to establish a new center of excellence for trust and safety in Austin, Texas. However, the company ended up hiring far fewer moderators for the center than initially planned, according to Bloomberg.
Musk has not exactly been a model of fact-checking.
Last Friday, the CEO shared a video, apparently against his platform’s own guidelines, which used AI to clone Harris’s voice, making it appear as if she admitted to being a “diversity hire” and saying she “knows nothing about running the country.” The billionaire then posted “civil war is inevitable” in response to unrest across the UK caused by the murder of three girls last week and the spread of misinformation about the perpetrator, prompting UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to issue a stern condemnation.
By: Nestor Castillo, ForAllTechNews Director