Day: August 5, 2024

Chicago — Five secretaries of state are urging Elon Musk to fix an AI chatbot on the social media platform X, saying in a letter sent Monday that it has spread election misinformation.

The top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington told Musk that X’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

While Grok is available only to subscribers to the premium versions of X, the misinformation was shared across multiple social media platforms and reached millions of people, according to the letter. The bogus ballot deadline information from the chatbot also referenced Alabama, Indiana, Ohio and Texas, although their secretaries of state did not sign the letter. Grok continued to repeat the false information for 10 days before it was corrected, the secretaries said.

The letter urged X to immediately fix the chatbot “to ensure voters have accurate information in this critical election year.” That would include directing Grok to send users to CanIVote.org, a voting information website run by the National Association of Secretaries of State, when asked about U.S. elections.

“In this presidential election year, it is critically important that voters get accurate information on how to exercise their right to vote,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a statement. “Voters should reach out to their state or local election officials to find out how, when, and where they can vote.”

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Grok debuted last year for X premium and premium plus subscribers and was touted by Musk as a “rebellious” AI chatbot that will answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”

Social media platforms have faced mounting scrutiny for their role in spreading misinformation, including about elections. The letter also warned that inaccuracies are to be expected for AI products, especially chatbots such as Grok that are based on large language models.

“As tens of millions of voters in the U.S. seek basic information about voting in this major election year, X has the responsibility to ensure all voters using your platform have access to guidance that reflects true and accurate information about their constitutional right to vote,” the secretaries wrote in the letter.

Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it to X, watchdog groups have raised concerns over a surge in hate speech and misinformation being amplified on the platform, as well as the reduction of content moderation teams, elimination of misinformation features and censoring of journalists critical of Musk.

Experts say the moves represent a regression from progress made by social media platforms attempting to better combat political disinformation after the 2016 U.S. presidential contest and could precipitate a worsening misinformation landscape ahead of this year’s November elections.
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Washington — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies.

The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.

After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling.

It represents a major setback for Google and its parent, Alphabet Inc., which had steadfastly argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers’ overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online.

Google’s search engine currently processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, nearly doubling its daily volume from 12 years ago, according to a recent study released by the investment firm BOND.

Google almost certainly will appeal the decision in a process that ultimately may land in the U.S. Supreme Court.

For now, the decision vindicates antitrust regulators at the Justice Department, which filed its lawsuit nearly four years ago while Donald Trump was still president and has been escalating it efforts to rein in Big Tech’s power during President Joe Biden’s administration.

The case depicted Google as a technological bully that methodically has thwarted competition to protect a search engine that has become the centerpiece of a digital advertising machine that generated nearly $240 billion in revenue last year. Justice Department lawyers argued that Google’s monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices while also enjoying the luxury of having to invest more time and money into improving the quality of its search engine — a lax approach that hurt consumers.

As expected, Mehta’s ruling focused on the billions of dollars Google spends every year to install its search engine as the default option on new cellphones and tech gadgets. In 2021 alone, Google spent more than $26 billion to lock in those default agreements, Mehta said in his ruling.

Google ridiculed those allegations, noting that consumers have historically changed search engines when they become disillusioned with the results they were getting. For instance, Yahoo — now a minor player on the internet — was the most popular search engine during the 1990s before Google came along.

Mehta said the evidence at trial showed the importance of the default settings. He noted that Microsoft’s Bing search engine has 80% share of the search market on the Microsoft Edge browser. The judge said that shows other search engines can be successful if Google is not locked in as the predetermined default option.

Still, Mehta credited the quality of Google’s product as an important part of its dominance, as well, saying flatly that “Google is widely recognized as the best [general search engine] available in the United States.”

Mehta’s conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sorts of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage done and restore a more competitive landscape.

Besides boosting Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the outcome could hurt Google at a critical pivot point that is tilting technology in the age of artificial intelligence. Both Microsoft and Google are among the early leaders in AI in a battle that now could be affected by Mehta’s market-rattling decision.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was one of the Justice Department’s star witnesses during the testimony that covered his frustration with Google deals with the likes of Apple that made it nearly impossible for the Bing search engine to make any headway, even as Microsoft poured more than $100 billion in improvements since 2009.

“You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, and you search on Google,” Nadella said at one point in his testimony. “Everybody talks about the open web, but there is really the Google web.”

Nadella also expressed fear that it might take an antitrust crackdown to ensure the situation didn’t get worse as AI becomes a bigger force in search.

Google still faces other legal threats besides this one, both in the U.S. and abroad. any antitrust lawsuits brought against Google domestically and abroad. In September, a federal trial is scheduled to begin in Virginia over the Justice Department’s allegations that Google’s advertising technology constitutes an illegal monopoly.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous and connected vehicles in the coming weeks, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The Biden administration plans to issue a proposed rule that would bar Chinese software in vehicles in the United States with Level 3 automation and above, which would have the effect of also banning testing on U.S. roads of autonomous vehicles produced by Chinese companies.

The administration, in a previously unreported decision, also plans to propose barring vehicles with Chinese-developed advanced wireless communications abilities modules from U.S. roads, the sources added.

Under the proposal, automakers and suppliers would need to verify that none of their connected vehicle or advanced autonomous vehicle software was developed in a “foreign entity of concern” like China, the sources said.

The Commerce Department said last month it planned to issue proposed rules on connected vehicles in August and expected to impose limits on some software made in China and other countries deemed adversaries.

Asked for comment, a Commerce Department spokesperson said on Sunday that the department “is concerned about the national security risks associated with connected technologies in connected vehicles.”

The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security will issue a proposed rule that “will focus on specific systems of concern within the vehicle. Industry will also have a chance to review that proposed rule and submit comments.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment but the Chinese foreign ministry has previously urged the United States “to respect the laws of the market economy and principles of fair competition.” It argues Chinese cars are popular globally because they had emerged out of fierce market competition and are technologically innovative.

On Wednesday, the White House and State Department hosted a meeting with allies and industry leaders to “jointly address the national security risks associated with connected vehicles,” the department said. Sources said officials disclosed details of the administration’s planned rule.

The meeting included officials from the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom who “exchanged views on the data and cybersecurity risks associated with connected vehicles and certain components.”

Also known as conditional driving automation, Level 3 involves technology that allows drivers to engage in activities behind the wheel, such as watching movies or using smartphones, but only under some limited conditions.

In November, a group of U.S. lawmakers raised alarm about Chinese companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States and asked questions of 10 major companies including Baidu, Nio, WeRide, Didi Chuxing, Xpeng, Inceptio, Pony.ai, AutoX, Deeproute.ai and Qcraft.

The letters said in the 12 months ended November 2022 that Chinese AV companies test drove more than 450,000 miles in California. In July 2023, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his department had national security concerns about Chinese autonomous vehicle companies in the United States.

The administration is worried about connected vehicles using the driver monitoring system to listen or record occupants or take control of the vehicle itself.

“The national security risks are quite significant,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May. “We decided to take action because this is really serious stuff.”
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