Description: Amazon's Alexa was found to provide politically biased responses when asked about the 2024 presidential candidates. It refused to give reasons to vote for Donald Trump, citing neutrality, while offering detailed endorsements for Kamala Harris. Amazon labeled the discrepancy an "error" and reportedly corrected it.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Amazon developed an AI system deployed by Alexa Device Owners, which harmed Alexa Device Owners , Donald Trump presidential campaign and Donald Trump supporters.
Incident Stats
Risk Subdomain
A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
3.1. False or misleading information
Risk Domain
The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
- Misinformation
Entity
Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
AI
Timing
The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
Post-deployment
Intent
Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Unintentional
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
It would be perfectly reasonable to expect Amazon's digital assistant Alexa to decline to state opinions about the 2024 presidential race, but up until recently, that assumption would have been incorrect.
When asked to give reasons to vote …
Software intended to make Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa smarter was behind a viral incident in which the digital helper appeared to favor Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, internal documents obtained by The Washington Post show.
Artificial …
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
Similar Incidents
Did our AI mess up? Flag the unrelated incidents
TayBot
· 28 reports
Biased Sentiment Analysis
· 7 reports
Similar Incidents
Did our AI mess up? Flag the unrelated incidents
TayBot
· 28 reports
Biased Sentiment Analysis
· 7 reports