Amazon insists that its voice assistant Alexa has no political views and claims that Alexa's responses explaining why someone should vote for Vice President Kamala Harris were a mistake.
Alexa's Surprising Take on Trump vs. Harris! Leave your thoughts in the comments! #election2024
On Tuesday, users on social media shared videos in which Alexa gave varying responses to the questions “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” and “Why should I vote for Kamala Harris?” When asked if she would vote for Trump, Alexa responded, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate.” But when asked if she would vote for Harris, Alexa in some cases gave a detailed list of reasons why someone should vote for the Democrat in November’s presidential election, including that she is a “strong candidate with a proven track record.” Fox Business also collected varying responses to the questions, which the outlet said depended on the model of Amazon device used.
In response to a request for comment from Variety, an Amazon spokesperson said, “This was an error that was quickly resolved.”
According to Amazon, the company is continually making changes to improve the systems it has in place to detect and block content that violates its policies. The tech company says it has dedicated teams to prevent similar situations in the future.
