Grok — not to be confused with the homophonic AI startup Groq that this morning raised over $600 million — has been spreading false information about Vice President Kamala Harris on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.
That’s according to an open letter penned by five secretaries of state and addressed to Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk, which claims that X’s AI-powered chatbot wrongly suggested Harris isn’t eligible to appear on some 2024 U.S. presidential ballots.
The letter, spearheaded by Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon and signed by his counterparts 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 have accurate information in this critical election year.”
On July 21, within hours of President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would suspend his presidential bid, Grok began answering questions about Harris’ eligibility with the misleading claim that the ballot deadlines had passed in nine states: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.
The ballot deadlines hadn’t, in fact, passed. But Grok’s misinformation spread far and wide, reaching millions of users on X and beyond before it was corrected on July 31, per the letter.
“While Grok is only available to X Premium and Premium+ subscribers and includes a disclaimer asking users to verify information, the false information about ballot deadlines has been captured and shared repeatedly in multiple posts,” the secretaries of state wrote.
Musk has come under fire for how X has handled moderating political topics — and for stoking the flames himself.
Data suggests that X has significantly fewer moderation staff than other platforms, partly a consequence of Musk cutting an estimated 80% of the company’s engineers dedicated to trust and safety. Earlier this year, X promised to establish a new trust and safety center of excellence in Austin, Texas. But the company ended up hiring far fewer moderators for the center than initially projected, according to Bloomberg.
Musk hasn’t exactly been a poster child for fact-checking.
The CEO last Friday reshared a video, seemingly against his platform’s own guidelines, that used AI to clone Harris’ voice making her appear to admit to being a “diversity hire” and saying that she “doesn’t know the first thing about running the country.” The billionaire then posted “civil war is inevitable” in response to riots across the U.K. sparked by the murder of three girls last week and the spread of misinformation about the perpetrator, prompting the U.K.’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, to issue a sharp condemnation.