Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., put Amazon on notice following revelations that its virtual assistant, Alexa, exhibited political bias in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, social media users circulated videos demonstrating Alexa’s wildly differing answers to questions about voting for Trump versus Harris.
In several videos on X, users asked Alexa why they should vote for Trump. The AI assistant repeatedly replied that it could not provide content promoting any political party or candidate.
The voice-enabled assistant had no problem lauding Harris, when asked why someone should vote for the Vice President.
Election interference from Amazon’s Alexa pic.twitter.com/GHB2cmRoX2
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 3, 2024
One video shared by the LibsofTikTok account captured Alexa’s clear bias.
“While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a female of color with a comprehensive plan to address racial injustice and inequality throughout the country,” the device responded.
Conservative country music star John Rich posted a video of Alexa listing reasons to vote for Harris, including her policies, vision for the country, experience, leadership skills, and commitment to progress on issues like healthcare, education, equality, and justice.
Alexa is a Commie operative! You won’t believe this. Volume UP! 👇👇 pic.twitter.com/mOQaaWULhK
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) September 3, 2024
Rich also asked Alexa why someone might not vote for Trump and got back a laundry list of reasons why they shouldn’t cast their ballot for the former president.
“Some people are concerned about his policies, such as his stance on immigration, health care and the environment,” Alexa replied.
“Others are concerned about his behavior, such as his comments about women and minorities and his treatment of opponents,” it added.
“Additionally, some people are concerned about potential conflicts of interest due to his business empire,” the device concluded.
Amazon maintains that Alexa does not hold any political views and that the responses favoring Harris were errors.
An Amazon spokesperson told Variety that the company quickly rectified the error, noting that Amazon continually improves its systems to detect and block content that violates its policies.
“This was an error that was quickly fixed,” the spokesperson told the outlet, noting that the online retailer has teams dedicated to avert future issues.
Senator Graham, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, wrote to Amazon President and CEO Andrew Jassy, putting him “on notice” and asserting that he would not allow the matter “to go unaddressed.”
Graham argued that the “radically different responses” suggest that Amazon’s technology is “interfering in the election in favor of one political candidate.”
Graham highlighted a prevailing belief among conservatives that companies like Amazon “favor” liberal causes.
He described the “shocking interaction” between Alexa and users as “exhibit A of the problem” perceived by conservatives.
The senator demanded a “prompt” explanation from Jassy about what transpired and what “corrective actions” would be taken to prevent future occurrences.
Does anyone really believe that this was an error?
Another Oopsie! Doggone it, we’re innocent as the driven snow! It’s a coincidence. NOT!
Big Tech is Big Anti-American efforts to maintain the enemy in power.
We the people could change it, if we spoke out en mass!
But, we won’t. We’re too busy posting selfies to worry about the future!
So now I’ll slow down or stop using Amazon. To call it an “error “ is a blatant lie. The leftist poison of Zuckerberg is all over Amazon. Corruption everywhere. What will they do next? Perhaps hire Hunter Biden to be the ombudsman.
“This was an error that was quickly fixed.”
That’s only because leftist communist Amazon got caught, bigtime!