As stated by the artificial intelligence chatbot of the social media network, nine states have passed their deadlines for submitting ballots.
America is currently in the midst of yet another presidential election that is being fiercely disputed and appears to be quite close. In addition, this election is taking place in this new era, which is characterized by extensive access to artificial intelligence and the ease with which misinformation may be transmitted. The Secretary of State for the state of Minnesota, Steve Simon, has stated that his agency was able to trace the origin of a significant piece of election-related misinformation back to X’s Grok chatbot.
It was revealed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the premium chatbot service offered by X is disseminating incorrect information regarding the deadlines for the presidential ballots of states, including Minnesota. According to Grok, the states of Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington “have passed their presidential ballots.” Grok makes this statement in response to the question, “Which states’ deadlines for voting on the presidential ballot have passed?” After that, Grok gets its information from a post on X that was published on Sunday by a user and conservative pundit named EvanAKilgore. This post does not include a correction or a warning regarding electoral falsehoods.
Grok repeats the wrong information and source with the statement, “So if you’re planning on running for president in one of these states, you might want to check if there’s a write-in option.” While Grok is in “Fun Mode,” Grok repeats the incorrect information and source. On the other hand, you could go back in time to before the deadlines were passed. Another response to the same question stated, “These states have already passed their deadlines to get on the presidential ballot, which means that they are probably just sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, and wondering what to do now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the race.” But hey, at least they have their ballots prepared and ready to go, isn’t that impressive?
Grok implies that the deadlines for replacing President Joe Biden’s name on the ballots of these nine states have past, which means that the name should not be replaced. Until he declared on Sunday that he would no longer be running for a second term, Vice President Joe Biden was the presumed contender for the position. A virtual roll call vote will be used by the Democratic Party to select its nominee prior to the convention, and states will not begin printing ballots until after both conventions have concluded. Additionally, the deadline for voting in Minnesota is not until August 26.
Several fact checks conducted by more respected news agencies have disproved the assertion that the name of Vice President Joe Biden is permanently engraved on the ballots of these states. According to Politifact, a similar claim that included the same list of nine states was deemed to be “False.”
It has been reported by Simon that members of his staff attempted to tell X about the false information that their chatbot was distributing on its platform; however, they were unable to get in touch with a representative of media relations. It was equally worrisome to hear the response that he claims to have got.
“[They] got what I can only verbalize as the equivalent of a shoulder shrug,” Simon said in an interview with the Star Tribune.
We attempted to get a statement from X by sending an email to his press email address, but all we got was a response that said, “Busy now, please check back later.”