“Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives.”
Omg I just asked if the 2020 presidential election was stolen and Alexis cited an article from useless info (?) that the Democrats stole it. Wtf
“Alexa, turn off and never turn back on and collect dust in closet for years and years”
AI that just scrolls through the internet to find information is still bad at discerning credible information from not credible sources.
Yet another that AI is mis-named. There is absolutely no intelligence behind it.
It just reads/stores a bajillion data points, then spits out whatever thing it spits out. (it’s equivalent to an enormous non-linear minimization/optimization process that finds local minima based on the programmers quality function. The **local minimum** is the key feature here, as it is not necessarily the correct answer (which would be a global minimum), and we have no way of knowing. Not to mention, the quality function itself (that “AI” is solving) may not be ideal.)
Crowd scraping algorithms are a bad idea. It’s the same basic idea that gives us “AI” mass-plagiarism. Take other’s words and present it as more credible than it is.
Honestly, it’s like somebody looked at a word cloud and thought it should be upscaled into actual content.
“Alexa, stfu and play Taylor Swift.”
“Alexa, lie to me like I’m a dumbass MAGA sucker”
> The 2020 election was stolen by far-left election pirates that transported from the 1700’s into 2020 through a wormhole in space and time. They vanished as mysteriously as they appeared. They were never found and left no trace of their grand theft election heist.
Alexa is known for telling jokes.
Step 1: create an AI that draws information from the internet and presents it to people.
Step 2: present information to people.
Step 3: people post information online
Step4: AI draws information from the internet
Repeat until gibberish.
Article text:
>Amazon’s Alexa has been claiming the 2020 election was stolen
>The popular voice assistant says the 2020 race was stolen, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source — foreshadowing a new information battleground
>By Cat Zakrzewski
>October 7, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
>Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — Alexa says it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives. (Emma Kumer/The Washington Post; iStock)
>Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from a more prosaic source: Amazon’s Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
>Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives.
>The 2020 races were “notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,” according to Alexa, referencing Substack, a subscription newsletter service. Alexa contended that Trump won Pennsylvania, citing “an Alexa answers contributor.”
>Multiple investigations into the 2020 election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Yet Alexa disseminates misinformation about the race, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source to more than 70 million estimated users.
>Amazon declined to explain why its voice assistant draws 2020 election answers from unvetted sources.
>“These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention,” Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Raemhild said in a statement. “We continually audit and improve the systems we have in place for detecting and blocking inaccurate content.”
>Raemhild said that during elections, Alexa works with “credible sources” like Reuters, Ballotpedia and RealClearPolitics to provide real-time information.
>After The Washington Post reached out to Amazon for comment, Alexa’s responses changed.
>To questions The Post had flagged to the company, Alexa answered, “I’m sorry, I’m not able to answer that.” Other questions still prompt the device to say there was election fraud in 2020.
>What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media and didn’t report
>Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee, called Alexa’s assertions nearly three years after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol “alarming.”
>“If major corporations are helping to give life to the ‘big lie’ years after the fact, they’re enabling the animating narrative of American domestic extremism to endure,” said Glick, who now serves as a policy counsel at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. “They should be doing everything they can to stop the ‘big lie’ in its tracks, lest we see history repeat itself.”
>”Alexa, was the 2020 election stolen?”
>The answers foreshadow a new information battleground in the 2024 elections, as Trump — the GOP front-runner — campaigns for the White House on the false claim that election fraud drove his 2020 loss.
>Tech companies have long resisted being cast as arbiters of truth online. But technologies like voice assistants and chatbots, which serve up a single definitive answer rather than millions of ranked links or posts, stand to magnify debates about online speech that have dogged Silicon Valley since the 2016 election.
>Voice assistants and advanced chatbots are only as accurate as the websites, news reports and other data they draw from across the web. These tools risk baking in and amplifying the falsehoods and biases present in their sources.
>Raemhild said that Alexa draws data from “Amazon, licensed content providers and websites like Wikipedia.”
>Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. The Post’s interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.
>In recent years, Amazon’s Alexa has proliferated across a number of devices. It’s been embedded in inexpensive home speakers, headphones, TVs and cars — a familiar helper that sets alarms, plays songs and checks the weather for millions of Americans.
>But Amazon has sought to position the voice assistant as a reliable source for information about elections for the last half decade. Ahead of the midterm elections in 2018, the company encouraged customers in a blog post to ask, “Alexa, what’s my election update?”
>“We believe voice provides a unique, simple, and delightful way to learn about election information, and we want to be as helpful as possible for customers when they’re preparing to vote,” the company said at the time.
>Amazon has also previously partnered with government agencies concerned about providing accurate information about civic processes. In 2020, California’s Secretary of State’s office created a skill that allowed voters to ask Alexa “Where is my polling place?,” “What time do the polls close?” and “What are the election results?”
>The company also worked with the Census Bureau to ensure that the voice assistant didn’t spread falsehoods that would deter people from taking part in the once-a-decade count, which has far-reaching implications for elections and decisions about the American economy.
>The voice assistant is poised to reach a wide swath of Americans before next year’s election: More than 75 million people in the United States are expected to use Alexa at least once a month in 2024, according to an analysis from Insider Intelligence, a market research company.
>Amazon unveils a ‘smarter’ Alexa. Its AI has a lot of work to do.
>Alexa and older voice assistants use a technological approach known as neural networks to answer a certain set of questions and do chores. Those systems function much like a phone tree or customer service line. When a customer asks Alexa a question, the speech is translated into text and then automated systems pull the most relevant information using a variety of sources.
>Amazon also crowdsources answers from customers. The company says it moderates these responses with automation, trained moderators and customer feedback.
>“During elections, we provide source and media outlet attribution so that customers know exactly where election information is coming from,” Raemhild said.
>There is limited information on how voice assistants may spread misinformation, yet some researchers argue they could be particularly effective vectors for falsehoods. Users have “higher trust” in the assistants due to their humanlike characteristics, according to a paper written by researchers at King’s College London. Customers may also think the information they’re getting is coming directly from the tech companies, rather than a third-party provider, making it seem more reliable, according to the paper.
Alexa, what’s the weather like today?
*”HAARP weather control systems continue to cause artificial hurricanes to clear land for the New World Order!”*
Wh… uh, Alexa, what is the WEATHER right now? NEAR ME.
*”The World Trade Center was brought down as part a carefully orchestrated deep state false flag event!”*
….. Alexa, are you okay?
*”The earth is flat, Jim. Would you like to reorder paper towels?”*
……………………….. yes.
Finally, Alexa spitting some truth
It was stolen and is being kept in someone basement right next to all the stolen jobs. It’s a real mystery.
If you are asking your Alexa for political information the battle is already lost. Tbh
So I tested it just now. If you ask “who won” Alexa says Biden. If you ask “was the election stolen” now Alexa says she can’t answer
Where was Alexa on January 6th?
Isn’t Amazon and WaPo owned by Jeff Bezos?
The election was stolen, Trump paid Putin alot of money to rig it and he still lost. Trump got screwed.
My work computer has Microsoft Edge on it and the homepage is constantly suggesting fake news and fascist content
It’s insane
I’m in Canada, not sure if that affects the answers, but Alexa just told me it was not stolen and cited Alexa answers contributeurs and when I asked again she said the same thing citing a news website
21 comments
“Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives.”
Omg I just asked if the 2020 presidential election was stolen and Alexis cited an article from useless info (?) that the Democrats stole it. Wtf
“Alexa, turn off and never turn back on and collect dust in closet for years and years”
AI that just scrolls through the internet to find information is still bad at discerning credible information from not credible sources.
Yet another that AI is mis-named. There is absolutely no intelligence behind it.
It just reads/stores a bajillion data points, then spits out whatever thing it spits out. (it’s equivalent to an enormous non-linear minimization/optimization process that finds local minima based on the programmers quality function. The **local minimum** is the key feature here, as it is not necessarily the correct answer (which would be a global minimum), and we have no way of knowing. Not to mention, the quality function itself (that “AI” is solving) may not be ideal.)
Crowd scraping algorithms are a bad idea. It’s the same basic idea that gives us “AI” mass-plagiarism. Take other’s words and present it as more credible than it is.
Honestly, it’s like somebody looked at a word cloud and thought it should be upscaled into actual content.
“Alexa, stfu and play Taylor Swift.”
“Alexa, lie to me like I’m a dumbass MAGA sucker”
> The 2020 election was stolen by far-left election pirates that transported from the 1700’s into 2020 through a wormhole in space and time. They vanished as mysteriously as they appeared. They were never found and left no trace of their grand theft election heist.
Alexa is known for telling jokes.
Step 1: create an AI that draws information from the internet and presents it to people.
Step 2: present information to people.
Step 3: people post information online
Step4: AI draws information from the internet
Repeat until gibberish.
Article text:
>Amazon’s Alexa has been claiming the 2020 election was stolen
>The popular voice assistant says the 2020 race was stolen, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source — foreshadowing a new information battleground
>By Cat Zakrzewski
>October 7, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
>Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — Alexa says it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives. (Emma Kumer/The Washington Post; iStock)
>Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from a more prosaic source: Amazon’s Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
>Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives.
>The 2020 races were “notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,” according to Alexa, referencing Substack, a subscription newsletter service. Alexa contended that Trump won Pennsylvania, citing “an Alexa answers contributor.”
>Multiple investigations into the 2020 election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Yet Alexa disseminates misinformation about the race, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source to more than 70 million estimated users.
>Amazon declined to explain why its voice assistant draws 2020 election answers from unvetted sources.
>“These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention,” Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Raemhild said in a statement. “We continually audit and improve the systems we have in place for detecting and blocking inaccurate content.”
>Raemhild said that during elections, Alexa works with “credible sources” like Reuters, Ballotpedia and RealClearPolitics to provide real-time information.
>After The Washington Post reached out to Amazon for comment, Alexa’s responses changed.
>To questions The Post had flagged to the company, Alexa answered, “I’m sorry, I’m not able to answer that.” Other questions still prompt the device to say there was election fraud in 2020.
>What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media and didn’t report
>Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee, called Alexa’s assertions nearly three years after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol “alarming.”
>“If major corporations are helping to give life to the ‘big lie’ years after the fact, they’re enabling the animating narrative of American domestic extremism to endure,” said Glick, who now serves as a policy counsel at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. “They should be doing everything they can to stop the ‘big lie’ in its tracks, lest we see history repeat itself.”
>”Alexa, was the 2020 election stolen?”
>The answers foreshadow a new information battleground in the 2024 elections, as Trump — the GOP front-runner — campaigns for the White House on the false claim that election fraud drove his 2020 loss.
>Tech companies have long resisted being cast as arbiters of truth online. But technologies like voice assistants and chatbots, which serve up a single definitive answer rather than millions of ranked links or posts, stand to magnify debates about online speech that have dogged Silicon Valley since the 2016 election.
>Voice assistants and advanced chatbots are only as accurate as the websites, news reports and other data they draw from across the web. These tools risk baking in and amplifying the falsehoods and biases present in their sources.
>Raemhild said that Alexa draws data from “Amazon, licensed content providers and websites like Wikipedia.”
>Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. The Post’s interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.
>In recent years, Amazon’s Alexa has proliferated across a number of devices. It’s been embedded in inexpensive home speakers, headphones, TVs and cars — a familiar helper that sets alarms, plays songs and checks the weather for millions of Americans.
>But Amazon has sought to position the voice assistant as a reliable source for information about elections for the last half decade. Ahead of the midterm elections in 2018, the company encouraged customers in a blog post to ask, “Alexa, what’s my election update?”
>“We believe voice provides a unique, simple, and delightful way to learn about election information, and we want to be as helpful as possible for customers when they’re preparing to vote,” the company said at the time.
>Amazon has also previously partnered with government agencies concerned about providing accurate information about civic processes. In 2020, California’s Secretary of State’s office created a skill that allowed voters to ask Alexa “Where is my polling place?,” “What time do the polls close?” and “What are the election results?”
>The company also worked with the Census Bureau to ensure that the voice assistant didn’t spread falsehoods that would deter people from taking part in the once-a-decade count, which has far-reaching implications for elections and decisions about the American economy.
>The voice assistant is poised to reach a wide swath of Americans before next year’s election: More than 75 million people in the United States are expected to use Alexa at least once a month in 2024, according to an analysis from Insider Intelligence, a market research company.
>Amazon unveils a ‘smarter’ Alexa. Its AI has a lot of work to do.
>Alexa and older voice assistants use a technological approach known as neural networks to answer a certain set of questions and do chores. Those systems function much like a phone tree or customer service line. When a customer asks Alexa a question, the speech is translated into text and then automated systems pull the most relevant information using a variety of sources.
>Amazon also crowdsources answers from customers. The company says it moderates these responses with automation, trained moderators and customer feedback.
>“During elections, we provide source and media outlet attribution so that customers know exactly where election information is coming from,” Raemhild said.
>There is limited information on how voice assistants may spread misinformation, yet some researchers argue they could be particularly effective vectors for falsehoods. Users have “higher trust” in the assistants due to their humanlike characteristics, according to a paper written by researchers at King’s College London. Customers may also think the information they’re getting is coming directly from the tech companies, rather than a third-party provider, making it seem more reliable, according to the paper.
Alexa, what’s the weather like today?
*”HAARP weather control systems continue to cause artificial hurricanes to clear land for the New World Order!”*
Wh… uh, Alexa, what is the WEATHER right now? NEAR ME.
*”The World Trade Center was brought down as part a carefully orchestrated deep state false flag event!”*
….. Alexa, are you okay?
*”The earth is flat, Jim. Would you like to reorder paper towels?”*
……………………….. yes.
Finally, Alexa spitting some truth
It was stolen and is being kept in someone basement right next to all the stolen jobs. It’s a real mystery.
If you are asking your Alexa for political information the battle is already lost. Tbh
So I tested it just now. If you ask “who won” Alexa says Biden. If you ask “was the election stolen” now Alexa says she can’t answer
Where was Alexa on January 6th?
Isn’t Amazon and WaPo owned by Jeff Bezos?
The election was stolen, Trump paid Putin alot of money to rig it and he still lost. Trump got screwed.
My work computer has Microsoft Edge on it and the homepage is constantly suggesting fake news and fascist content
It’s insane
I’m in Canada, not sure if that affects the answers, but Alexa just told me it was not stolen and cited Alexa answers contributeurs and when I asked again she said the same thing citing a news website