Election officials urge Elon Musk to stop his AI chatbot from spreading false 2024 election information
The Grok logo is being displayed on a smartphone with the X AI icon visible in the background in this photo illustration. A bipartisan group of secretaries of state blasted Elon Musk and his X platform on August 5 for providing “false information” about Vice President Kamala Harris’ supposed ineligibility to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot in several battleground states.
(CNN) — A bipartisan group of secretaries of state blasted Elon Musk and his X platform Monday for providing “false information” about Vice President Kamala Harris’ supposed ineligibility to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot in several battleground states.
The group flagged issues that emerged last month with the AI-powered Grok chatbot on X, formerly known as Twitter. Soon after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, Grok provided information to some users inaccurately stating that, “The ballot deadline has passed for several states for the 2024 election,” in nine states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas and Ohio, according to the letter.
“This is false,” the letter says. “In all nine states the opposite is true: The ballots are not closed, and upcoming ballot deadlines would allow for changes to candidates listed on the ballot for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States.”
The letter urged Musk to “immediately implement changes” on the X platform. They want him to direct users to a nonpartisan website from the National Association of Secretaries of State where voters can look up reliable information about their registration status and polling-place locations.
Election officials from five of the nine affected states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state – signed onto the letter. Four of the five officials are Democrats. Pennsylvania’s top election official, Al Schmidt, is a Republican who famously refused to support former President Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with the 2020 election results in Philadelphia.
CNN has reached out to X for comment.
According to the letter, the false information about Harris’ eligibility to appear on the ballot reached “millions of people” before it was apparently corrected, after 10 days.
After Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he has removed many of the prior guardrails that protected the platform from disinformation. This has allowed inaccurate information and full-blown conspiracy theories about a variety of topics, including the 2024 election, to proliferate and reach millions.
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