AI in practice

Amazon's Alexa cites an unverified source claiming the 2020 election was stolen

Matthias Bastian
A product image of Amazon Alexa with a screen on a table. The display shows an information text about tacos.

Amazon

Amazon's Alexa has been spreading misinformation about the 2020 U.S. election, claiming it was "stolen by a massive amount of election fraud," citing an unverified source, according to a Washington Post report.

The Washington Post doesn't specify which version of Alexa it was testing, but the event most likely has nothing to do with Amazon's recently announced LLM upgrade for Alexa. Rather, it seems to be an issue with providing access to the wrong sources. According to Amazon, the misinformation was a bug that was quickly fixed once the company was made aware of it. During the election, Alexa uses "credible sources" like Reuters, Ballotpedia, and RealClearPolitics to provide real-time information, according to Amazon.