Five secretaries of state call on Elon Musk to make changes to chatbot Grok over false election info

Five secretaries of state sent a letter to X owner Elon Musk on Monday, demanding he make changes to his Grok chatbot after it gave false election information.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon sent the letter with three fellow Democratic secretaries of state -- Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, and Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs -- and Republican Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, claiming that their combined "37 million constituents were recently impacted by false information" Grok provided about the election.

The secretaries said that hours after President Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race, "false information on ballot deadlines produced by Grok was shared on multiple social media platforms."

The inaccurate information was that the ballot deadlines for the November election had already passed in several states, including Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

"While Grok is only available to X Premium and Premium+ subscribers and includes a disclaimer asking users to verify information, the false information about ballot deadlines has been captured and shared repeatedly in multiple posts - reaching millions of people," the secretaries wrote. "Furthermore, Grok continued to repeat this false information for more than a week until it was corrected on July 31, 2024."

The secretaries recommended that the solution be to follow OpenAI's example, which included programming ChatGPT "to direct users to CanIVote.org - a nonpartisan resource from professional election administrators of both major parties - when asked about elections in the U.S."