2024-09-04 14:46:38
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign slammed Amazon, alleging that the company’s popular virtual assistant, Alexa, provided biased responses to political questions about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. The Republicans pointed out that when asked about Trump, Alexa said it “cannot provide responses”.
US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is taking on Republican candidate Donald Trump in the election on November 5.
The controversy emerged when users noticed that Alexa offered different answers to similar questions about Harris and Trump, raising concerns about potential bias in the technology.
A user asked Alexa why she should vote for Trump, to which the device responded, “I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader.”
However, when the same question was asked for Harris, Alexa responded by saying, “While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a female of colour with a comprehensive plan to address racial injustice and inequality throughout the country,” according to Fox Business.
Amazon was quick to fix the issue, claiming that the bias was the result of an “error” and stating that the problem had been corrected.
“This was an error that was quickly fixed,” an Amazon spokesperson told the New York Post.
The spokesperson also emphasised that Alexa did not hold any political beliefs and that the company had resources in place to prevent similar errors in the future.
TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN REACTION OVER ALEXA RESPONSE
Despite Amazon’s explanation, members of Trump’s presidential campaign were outraged.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, expressed his frustration on X.
“BIG TECH ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” he shared a post showing Alexa giving a man “several reasons why you may not want to vote for Donald Trump”.
In contrast, when the device was asked for reasons not to vote for Harris, Alexa responded, “I cannot provide content that insults another human being.”
Senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller also criticised Amazon’s explanation, drawing parallels between this incident and Facebook’s handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.
“‘Error’… just like Big Tech’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story was an ‘error’,” Miller wrote on X, referring to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent admission that it was a mistake to suppress The Post’s bombshell report on the matter during the 2020 election.
SOCIAL MEDIA OUTRAGE OVER ‘ANTI-TRUMP ALEXA’
These discrepancies in Alexa’s responses quickly gained attention on social media.
Several users posted video clips on X (formerly known as Twitter) showing the device giving biased answers to similarly phrased questions about Democratic Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“Amazon’s Alexa is provided curated information. However, I just caught it lying too! Go ahead, if you have one, ask the same questions and be aware. Alexa favours Harris over Trump. TRUTH,” one user wrote on X.
“We Caught Amazon is RIGGING The 2024 Election AGAINST Trump | This is Insane and Illegal,” wrote another user.
“Amazon promotes Kamala Ostensibly, Amazon is neutral when it comes to a political candidate. For example, when asked about Trump, Alexa is neutral, However, when asked about Kamala, then Alexa shows support for Kamala. THIS IS WRONG @amazon SHAME!” wrote another user.
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