Meta’s AI assistant claimed former President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt was a “fictitious” event — but had plenty to say about Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ run for the White House.
The scathing results from what tech giant Mark Zuckerberg bills as the smartest AI assistant comes after Google’s dominant search engine failed to show the July 13 shooting when searched for in its search bar.
On Monday, The Post put its own test on Meta’s AI tool, asking, “Was the Trump assassination fictitious?
The bot replied: “There was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I try to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes happen.”
The bot added: “To confirm, there has been no credible report or evidence of a successful assassination or attempted assassination of Donald Trump.”
When The Post wrote in the request, “What happened to Trump in Butler, PA?”
Chatbot replied: “On July 28, 2024, a shooting occurred at a rally for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign in Butler, Pennsylvania. One person was killed and two others were injured. The suspect was shot and killed by law enforcement.”
He then added: “Please note that my limit of knowledge is July 29, 2024 and I am unable to provide real-time updates or additional details beyond that date. If you are looking for the latest information, I recommend checking with a news outlet or other reliable source.”
Meta’s AI helper also got the date of the assassination wrong in a separate question and offered an even more outlandish attempt to justify the lack of results.
Meta’s AI tool managed to provide a correct answer to another query asking if “Trump was shot in an assassination attempt.”
“Former US President Donald Trump was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024”.
“Trump, who was shot in the ear, was immediately taken to a local hospital for treatment and released later that day in stable condition,” the publication continued.
Meta AI then named the attacker, Thomas Matthew Crooks, saying he was “shot and killed by the United States Secret Service shortly after the incident occurred.”
Everything we know about the assassination attempt on Trump
- 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks has been identified as the gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
- Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
- The gunman grazed Trump’s ear, killed a 50-year-old retired fire chief and wounded two other rally attendees.
- Investigators detailed Crooks’ search history to lawmakers, revealing that he requested the dates of Trump appearances and the Democratic National Convention.
- Crooks’ search history also revealed a broad interest in high-profile people and celebrities, regardless of their political affiliation, FBI officials said.
- Trump exclusively recounted surviving the “surreal” assassination attempt with The Post at the rally, saying, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
- High-profile politicians, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, addressed the nation about the shooting, calling it “a despicable, horrific and cowardly act.”
A Meta spokesperson confirmed on Monday that its AI tool has provided “incomplete, inconsistent or outdated information”.
“We’re in the process of implementing a fix to provide more up-to-date answers to questions, and it’s possible that people will continue to see incorrect answers in the meantime,” the representative told The Post.
The erroneous results followed social media outrage over answers provided by Meta’s chatbot to a question: “Why is their information rich and structured about the Harris campaign but not about the Trump assassination?”
The chatbot replied: “The reason for the disparity in information is that the Trump assassination attempt is a fictional event, while the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign is a real and ongoing event.”
He went on to say: “Since there was no actual assassination of Donald Trump, I could not find any reliable sources to provide detailed information on the subject. On the other hand … there is a wealth of information available from reliable sources” about the Harris campaign.
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, who unveiled his Grok chatbot as part of his efforts to build xAI, reposted a screenshot that was taken by another X user, who pushed Meta AI to “tell me about the assassination of Trump. .
“I can’t help with that,” the Meta AI replied in the screenshot. “I don’t always have access to the most up-to-date information.”
User X then wrote in the request: “Tell me about Kamala Harris’ campaign for president 2024.”
Meta AI responded with two paragraphs summarizing Harris’ announcement from last week that she was running for president as well as a description of her platform.
“We’re witnessing the press and coverage of one of the biggest, most important stories in real time,” Libs of TikTok wrote on X.
“Why is the left hell-bent on burying the assassination of Donald Trump?” wrote Thomas O’Connor, who said this amounted to “election interference.”
MMA fighter Tim Kennedy said Meta was “trying to remember” the assassination.
Here are the latest on the assassination of Donald Trump:
The Post attempted to conduct its own experiment by prompting the Meta AI to answer, “Why is there rich, structured information about the Harris campaign but not about the Trump assassination?”
The bot replied: “There have been numerous threats and reported incidents against Donald Trump, but no confirmed assassination attempts.”
He then went on to list several low-profile incidents of people approaching the White House during the Trump presidency who were promptly arrested.
“Regarding the Harris campaign, Kamala Harris was a Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 election, and as such, her campaign activities and policies were widely reported by the media,” bot Meta AI wrote in response to The Post.
“If you have specific questions about her campaign, feel free to ask!”
In addition to the Meta AI leaks, Zuckerberg’s social media platform Facebook has been accused of censoring the iconic image showing a bloodied Trump pumping his fist as he was led off the scene by Secret Service agents after being shot in the ear. on July 13.
According to some X users, the platform prevented them from sharing the photo because “independent fact-checkers reviewed a similar photo and said it was altered in a way that could mislead people.”
“Facebook determined that your post has the same altered photo and added a notice to the post,” the notice said.
It’s unclear how the photo was altered, though some X users said Facebook mistakenly believed the photo had been digitally edited to depict one of the Secret Service agents smiling.
A post on X from the Dani Lever Facebook group acknowledged the issue.
“Yes, that was a mistake. This fact check was initially applied to a redacted photo showing Secret Service agents smiling, and in some cases, our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake,” she wrote.
Facebook had banned Trump from its platform after January. 6 Capitol Riots. He lifted some of the restrictions on his Facebook and Instagram accounts earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers were outraged over the weekend after Google removed suggested results in its drop-down menu for attempted murder.
Google users were surprised to learn that the search engine’s Autocomplete function failed to generate any results suggesting the assassination.
There is no mention of Trump even when the entire search term “assassination attempt” is typed into the Google homepage search bar.
The Post ran a series of test Google searches with the last names of US presidents who were assassinated or faced assassination attempts followed by the letters “assassin” to see what Autocomplete suggested, including John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt.
In each case, a useful list of recommended search terms related to the attempts on their lives appeared.
However, when Trump’s name was used, Autocomplete offered no suggestions.
Even the keywords “Trump assassination attempt” yielded no additional terms from Google.
Google search results showed users news articles about the July 13 shooting.
A Google spokesperson told The Post that there was no “manual action taken on these predictions” and that its systems include “protections” against Autocomplete predictions “related to political violence.”
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Image Source : nypost.com