Amazon has said that its virtual assistant, Alexa, can provide accurate election-related information. But a report from The Washington Post found that Alexa spread misinformation when asked about election fraud. Though thought to be a pretty impressive tool, this is not the first Alexa controversy.
The Washington Post reported that when asked about election fraud during the 2020 presidential race, Alexa claimed the election was "stolen by a massive amount of election fraud." Alexa backed up this claim by citing Rumble (a video-sharing platform most popular among those on the right/alt-right).
Alexa also told people the 2020 election was "notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers." There is no evidence that fraud affected the outcome of the 2020 election, which might explain why Alexa had to cite Substack, an email newsletter platform through which anyone can start a blog, as the source when making this claim.
The Washington Post reports that Amazon was contacted about Alexa's misinformation and improper sourcing. The outlet said Alexa began responding to the same questions differently after being contacted about the issue. Alexa will now say, "I’m sorry. I’m not able to answer that," when asked the same questions, according to The Washington Post.
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“These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention. We continually audit and improve the systems we have in place for detecting and blocking inaccurate content," said Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Raemhild. However, The Washington Post reported that Alexa will still make claims about election fraud in 2020 when asked different questions that were not originally brought to Amazon's attention.
