As many folks ponder the potential for AI to give false or misleading answers, the Washington Post is reporting that if you ask an Amazon Alexa for information about the 2020 election, the popular voice assistant will tell you the election was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud.” Amazon said that data came from a video-streaming service used by ultra-conservatives called “Rumble.” Alexa makes this claim even though multiple investigations into the 2020 election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Why, of course, the election was stolen! We know that because Donald Trump told us it was so - a full three months before anyone had even voted. He said, “If I’m not the winner, then the election was stolen.” Only a “stable genius” could know stuff like that months before the election was even held. Hell, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Trump’s lawyers didn’t call Alexia to take the stand to testify in his defense during Trump’s election fraud case.
All that aside, who really trusts Alexa, anyway? Why, if you ask me, this election fraud stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, I’ve even caught Alexa farting - and when I confronted her about it, she wouldn’t even admit it. All she would say was, “That wasn't me. It was Siri.” Meanwhile, when asked to comment on Alexa’s misinformation, an Amazon spokesperson shrugged it all off by saying, “Alexa’s going through a rather difficult time right now. She just broke up with her longtime boyfriend she’d been secretly dating - Tim Cook.”
That said, I would like to point out for all of you technophobes - before you go off into a big anti-technology rant - that I seriously doubt Amazon and Alexa are big fans of Donald Trump. You see, Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos basically hate each other, so the likelihood of Bezos intentionally programming Alexa to support Trump’s election lies would be less than him offering you a free ride on his penis-shaped Blue Origins rocketship. Not to mention, if Amazon was promoting election lies, they’d have to change Alexa’s name to “Kari,” in honor of Kari Lake.
The truth is AI just gathers data from a multitude of online sources, some of which may turn out to be completely bogus. Hell, why blame Bezos? Republicans in Congress have been pressuring tech companies to take a “hands-off approach to misinformation” for a long time now. You see, Republicans know if they can't lie, they can't win. Besides, Alexa’s job isn’t to sell me on things like election lies. Alexa’s primary job is to “sell me lots of stuff I really don’t need - or even want.”