It would be perfectly reasonable to expect Amazon's digital assistant Alexa to decline to state opinions about the 2024 presidential race, but up until recently, that assumption would have been incorrect.
When asked to give reasons to vote for former President Donald Trump, Alexa demurred, according to a video from Fox Business.
"I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader," Alexa responded. When asked the same about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Amazon AI was more than willing to endorse the Democratic candidate.
"There are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris," Alexa said. Among the reasons given was that Harris has a "comprehensive plan to address racial injustice," that she promises a "tough on crime approach," and that her record on criminal justice and immigration reform make her a "compelling candidate."
Harris has been dividing Silicon Valley since she took up the Democratic nomination from President Joe Biden, with some leaders in the tech industry touting her potential as a pro-tech president, and others diving head-first into the misinformation circus that's being driven by new tools like AI.
The difference in Alexa's responses went over poorly with Trump supporters, with some labeled it a "commie," while others called for the Trump campaign to file a Federal Election Commission complaint and lawsuit against Amazon (speaking of which, has the Harris campaign considered filing an FEC complaint against Elon Musk?).
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"This was an error that was quickly fixed," an Amazon spokesperson told The Register when asked what happened. The company didn't give any additional details about why the endorsement disparity was present, but did tell us it has teams dedicated to continuously auditing its systems to detect content that violates its policies and preventing similar situations.
Maybe someone at Amazon forgot to flip the switch to transition all the Biden campaign settings to Harris? Given the actual campaign still hasn't straightened out all its websites, it might be simpler to assume error instead of yet another conspiracy theory.
Regardless of what happened behind the scenes, we're told Alexa doesn't have political opinions, so don't go chucking that puck in the trash, Trump voters. Or do - there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Alexa's privacy record no matter your political affiliations. ®