Recently, the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) Grok ChatbotsThe lawsuit sparked a controversy by falsely claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris would be in certain 2024 races.USAThe allegation came in an open letter from five U.S. secretaries of state, sent directly to X CEO Elon Musk.
The letter, initiated by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and supported by Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan and Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico, calls on Musk to "immediately make changes to X's AI search assistant Grok to ensure voters have accurate information during this critical election year."
The incident started on July 21, shortly after President Joe Biden announced the suspension of his presidential campaign, Grok began responding to questions about Harris' qualifications and falsely claimed that the ballot deadlines in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington had passed. However, in fact, these deadlines had not passed. Despite the correction on July 31, this false information quickly spread on the X platform, affecting millions of users.
Although Grok is only available to X Premium and Premium + users and comes with a disclaimer asking users to verify the information themselves, misinformation about the ballot deadline has been repeatedly circulated in multiple threads, which the state secretaries pointed out in their letter.
Musk has been widely criticized in recent years for his management of political topics, and sometimes even exacerbated these controversies himself. Recently, he retweeted a video in which Harris' voice was cloned using AI, making her admit that she was a "diversity hire" while also saying that she "doesn't know how to run a country." In addition, Musk also made a statement on social media that "civil war is inevitable" in response to the recent riots caused by a tragic incident. This statement triggered a strong condemnation from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.