Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon has come out against the chatbot, X’s Grok. Grok has been notorious for spreading false information about ballot deadlines related to the presidential race, according to Simon. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Grok was telling people that multiple states had missed their deadlines, including Minnesota, Texas, and Pennsylvania.
It’s a falsehood, originally from a post by user @EvanAKilgore on X. Grok’s “Fun Mode” is even eminently sarcastic about it, saying candidates should time-travel. That is misleading—President Biden’s name is not locked on ballots. States don’t begin printing ballots until after party conventions.
Minnesota’s ballot deadline isn’t until August 26, not past. Fact-checkers such as Politifact have disposed of the theory that Biden’s name is already cemented. Grok has persisted with posting the flawed information, yet no corrections were made.
Simon’s staff did attempt to inform X of the misinformation, but there were some problems in the communication. They got, as they termed it, a “shoulder shrug.” The immediate return from X’s press email did not help or clarify things.
This points to a big issue, there is just no feedback from X for this right now. Information provided by AI chatbots can be devastating if it is inaccurate. This incident underlines the necessity of more control and accuracy in AI-powered tools.
