Meta's AI chatbot denies Trump assassination attempt, company blames 'hallucinations'
Meta's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot recently made an erroneous statement denying the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump. The company has attributed this error to a glitch in its chatbot technology. Joel Kaplan, Meta's global head of policy, referred to these incorrect responses as "hallucinations" in a company blog post published on Tuesday.
Meta's initial programming restricted AI from discussing assassination
Initially, Meta's AI was programmed to avoid responding to questions about the assassination attempt. However, this restriction was lifted after it came under public scrutiny. Despite the change, Kaplan admitted that "in a small number of cases, Meta AI continued to provide incorrect answers, including sometimes asserting that the event didn't happen - which we are quickly working to address."
Trump accuses Meta and Google of censoring information
The issue of AI-generated misinformation is not confined to Meta. Google has also faced backlash for its Search autocomplete feature allegedly censoring results about the assassination attempt. In response, Trump encouraged his supporters via a post on Truth Social to "go after Meta and Google." He accused both companies of censoring information related to his assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally.
Meta and Google deny bias, apologize for errors
Both Meta and Google have denied any bias in their information dissemination. They maintained that these were unintentional errors. A representative from Meta apologized for the misinformation and stated they were implementing a fix for more accurate responses. Similarly, a spokesperson from Google clarified there was no manual action taken on their predictions and assured they were working on improvements.
