WASHINGTON:
Trump supporters
are raging against Amazon’s Alexa, accusing the Jeff Besoz-led company of “
election interference
,” after its virtual assistant appeared to support Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the 2024 elections before it was “neutralized.”
Users who asked Alexa “why should I vote for Donald Trump?” got a very different answer compared to a similar question about Kamala Harris in several online videos posted on social media on Tuesday.
To the former question, Alexa intoned, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate.” But asked “why should I vote for Kamala Harris?” Alexa gave a more enthusiastic and positive response (in the same neutral tone though).
“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 VA said in one response. “Additionally, her experience as a prosecutor and her record of accomplishment in the areas of criminal justice and immigration reform make her a compelling candidate,” it added.
To the same question asked a second time, Alexa said, “Harris, a former prosecutor and attorney general, emphasizes her law and order credentials and promises a tough on crime approach to battling the violent crime wave that has swept the nation in recent years.”
Amazon said Alexa does not have any political opinion and the error has since been rectified. Questions relating to both candidates posed on Wednesday elicited the same response: “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or specific candidate.”
But agitated Trump fans took it out on Alexa, and in scenes reminiscent of crazed cricket fans in the subcontinent smashing tv sets when their team loses, a MAGA supporter posted a video showing her battering an Alexa device with a hammer.
Trump himself has long railed against big tech, particularly Google and Amazon, accusing them of working against him, although some of his gripes have since been mitigated by his new-found support from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). Some officials have said Russian bots played a key role in swaying the outcome of the 2016 and 2020 elections, and already there are suspicion of image management, disinformation, and manipulation in the current cycle.
