ST PAUL, Minn. — The election of 2024 is as important as any in recent history, with distinct candidate positions on the direction the U.S. should take over the next four years. With all the rancor and noise surrounding candidates and campaigns, some are finding the decision over who to vote for difficult.
On Monday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and four fellow secretaries of state went on record in a letter urging X Corporation owner Elon Musk to take concrete steps to provide "accurate information" to users after his platform's AI search assistant allegedly provided inaccurate information on election rules.
The letter to Musk - signed by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, and Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs - says that not only did X provide bad information, it also delayed correcting that mistake for ten days, even after learning that the info was false.
Simon says within hours of President Joe Biden announcing he would not seek re-election on July 21, Grok - X's AI search assistant - told subscribers that the ballot deadline for Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington had already passed. "This is false," the letter asserts. "In all nine states the opposite is true: The ballots are not closed, and upcoming ballot deadlines would allow for changes to candidates listed on the ballot for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States."
"As Secretaries of State whose offices and 37 million constituents were recently impacted by false information provided by your platform, we are calling on you to immediately implement changes to X’s AI search assistant, Grok, to ensure voters have accurate information in this critical election year," Simon added.
The secretaries of state are asking Musk and X to send voters seeking election information to CanIvote.org, a nonpartisan resource from professional election administrators of both major parties. "On November 6, 2022, you (Musk and X) posted that the platform 'needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission,'" the letter notes. "We hope that you live up to this mission."
Secretary Simon's office said early Monday that officials at 'X' confirmed they received the letter but did not say if there was a reaction or comment from Musk or his company.
