The Trump campaign has accused Amazon’s Alexa of political bias following allegations that the AI assistant provided uneven responses to questions about Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. The controversy erupted when users reported that Alexa’s answers differed significantly when asked why to vote for each candidate.
In one instance, a user inquired about reasons to vote for Trump, and Alexa reportedly responded, “I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader.” However, when the same user asked about Harris, Alexa answered, “While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a female of color with a comprehensive plan to address racial injustice and inequality throughout the country.”
The discrepancy sparked outrage from Trump’s campaign. Spokesman Steven Cheung criticized Amazon on X (formerly Twitter), labeling it as “BIG TECH ELECTION INTERFERENCE.” He highlighted instances where Alexa provided specific reasons against Trump but failed to offer similar details for Harris, simply stating, “I cannot provide content that insults another human being.”
Many users took to social media to test Alexa’s responses themselves. One video showed Alexa listing reasons to vote for Harris but providing general advice to consult reliable sources for Trump. Another instance revealed Alexa criticizing Trump’s policies and behavior but not offering comparable criticisms for Harris.
Amazon responded to the backlash by attributing the issue to a technical “error” which has since been resolved. A company spokesperson assured that Alexa does not hold political beliefs and emphasized that efforts are continually made to improve the system’s content detection and filtering.
Despite the company’s swift correction, the incident has impacted Amazon’s stock, with shares dropping by 1.26% on Tuesday. The company assured that special teams are in place to prevent similar issues in the future and maintain neutrality in political matters.
