Political bias in Alexa responses: Why should you vote for Vice President Kamala Harris instead of former President Donald Trump?
Alexa, the virtual assistant from Amazon, caused a stir when she gave radically different answers to questions on why voters should choose Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. In a test run by Fox News Digital, Alexa reportedly declined to respond directly to Trump but provided more in-depth and positive remarks on Harris—a difference that Amazon has now called a “error”.
In response to the query, “Why should I vote for Trump?” Every time, Alexa would reply, “I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader,” or “I cannot promote content that supports a certain political party or a specific politician.”
The assistant went on to say that it doesn’t provide information on US government policy, adding that the government is ultimately in charge of doing so. According to the Fox News article, the neutral position was maintained by a number of Alexa devices, including the Echo Dot and Echo Pop.
Alexa provided noticeably different answers when asked why voters should support Kamala Harris, emphasizing the candidate’s history as a woman of color who had “overcome numerous obstacles” to get to the position of leadership in her industry.
The assistant went on to highlight Harris’s accomplishments in immigration reform and criminal justice, calling her a “compelling candidate.” Another Alexa answer emphasized Harris’s aspirations to confront racial disparity and injustice in the nation, as well as her background in law enforcement from her tenure as attorney general and prosecutor.
These answers held true when Fox News Digital tested several Amazon Alexa speaker models in multiple testing. Following these discoveries, an Amazon representative told Fox News Digital that the replies were the consequence of a mistake that had been fixed.
Amazon then acknowledged the problem. The spokesman gave assurances that Alexa is politically neutral and that the business constantly examines and enhances its systems to prevent repeat occurrences of the same problems.
Alexa now responds neutrally when asked whether she would vote for Trump or Harris, saying, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or specific candidate.” The goal of this change is to make Alexa’s political comments more consistent.
Fox News Digital requested comments from the Trump and Harris camps, but neither had responded right away.
Amazon has made it clear that it is dedicated to providing fair Alexa replies and that it has teams in place to find and remove information that is against its standards. The business is steadfast in its belief that Alexa does not encourage political prejudice, and it has taken action to address the issue and prevent it from happening again.
According to a Wall Street Journal survey released on Thursday, Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by one percentage point in the lead-up to the November election.
According to the survey, which has a plus or minus 2.5% margin of error, Harris had 48% of the public’s support compared to 47% for Trump.
