SGrok — 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 campaign, Grok began answering questions about Harris' eligibility with the misleading claim that ballot deadlines had passed in nine states: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.
The ballot deadlines had not actually passed. But Grok's deception went far and wide, reaching millions of users on X and beyond before being corrected on July 31, according to 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 state secretary and the state attorney said.
Musk has faced criticism for how X has moderated political discussions, as well as for feeding the fires himself.
According to data, X has much less moderation workers than other platforms, in part because Musk cut an estimated 80% of the company's trust and safety engineers. Earlier this year, X announced plans to construct a new trust and safety center of excellence in Austin, Texas. However, Bloomberg reports that the corporation hired much fewer moderators for the center than expected.
Musk hasn't exactly been the poster child for fact-checking.
Last Friday, the CEO reshared a video 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 prim.