Lindsey Graham has put Amazon on notice after a video went viral this week showing their automated assistant Alexa was biased in favor of Kamala Harris.
First, here’s that video:
In response to this Graham sent Amazon’s CEO a letter telling him the company was interfering in the election and he would not let it go “unaddressed.”
Here’s more from Fox News:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., issued a stern warning to Amazon after its virtual assistant technology, Alexa, was found to be politically biased in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Trump.
Graham, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, told Amazon president and CEO Andrew Jassy in a letter he was putting him “on notice that I will not allow this to go unaddressed.”
On Tuesday, videos of interactions with Alexa went viral as the technology responded to queries on why someone should vote for Harris or why they should vote for Trump.
When Fox News Digital questioned the technology about why they should vote for Trump, Alexa said, “I cannot promote content that supports a certain political party or a specific politician.”
“Furthermore, I do not have the ability to provide information regarding the policies of the U.S. government. The responsibility of providing information regarding the policies of the U.S. government lies with the government itself,” the Amazon technology said.
But when it was asked why someone should vote for Harris, Alexa said, “While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a woman of color who has overcome numerous obstacles to become a leader in her field.”
“Additionally, her experience as a prosecutor and her record of accomplishment in the areas of criminal justice and immigration reform make her a compelling candidate,” it added.
Amazon later said it corrected Alexa’s responses, claiming the disparity was an “error.”
“This was an error that was quickly fixed,” a spokesperson for the company told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
Graham claimed in his letter to Jassy that the “radically different responses suggest that Amazon technology is interfering in the election in favor of one political candidate.”
They claim it was an error, but someone programed Alexa to say this. It doesn’t just happen out of thin air. People program these things and this was allowed to happen by someone in the company. Graham is right to put them on notice.