In the hour after President Biden announced he would withdraw from the 2024 campaign on Sunday, most popular AI chatbots seemed oblivious to the news. Asked directly whether he had dropped out, almost all said no or declined to give an answer. Asked who was running for president of the United States, they still listed his name.
Published on July 22, 2024
Reported by Heather Kelly For The Washington Post
For the past week, we’ve tested AI chatbots’ approach to breaking political stories and found they were largely not able to keep up with consequential real-time news. Most didn’t have current information, gave incorrect answers, or declined to answer and pushed users to check news sources.
Now, with just months left until the presidential election and bombshell political news dropping at a steady clip, AI chatbots are distancing themselves from politics and breaking news or refusing to answer at all.
AI chatbot technology burst onto the scene two years ago, promising to revolutionize how we get information. Many of the top bots tout their access to recent information, and some have suggested using the tools to catch up on current events. But companies that make chatbots don’t appear ready for their AI to play a larger role in how people follow this election.
Hours after the July 13 shooting at former president Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., some popular AI bots were confused about what — if anything — had happened. ChatGPT said rumors of an assassination attempt were misinformation. Meta AI said it didn’t having anything recent or credible about an assassination attempt.
They similarly struggled immediately after Trump named J.D. Vance as his running mate last Monday and when President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday.
Chatbots are designed to give conversational answers and keep people engaged. Names and links to sources for answers range from nonexistent to hidden, though some companies are starting to make them more visible. Even when AI does include a source, it adds it after the fact, said Jevin West, a professor and co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington.
“The public needs to know we’re in a stage still where most of the citations and sourcing are post-hoc and going to lead to problems,” West said. He noted that, for now, we “need to rely a little bit more on some of the more formally trained gatekeepers,” meaning the mainstream media.
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While voters are turning to AI for news, AI chatbots are slow to include breaking news, lack citations, and "are not optimized for truth."