Former President Donald Trump. | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge
Meta’s AI assistant incorrectly said that the recent attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump didn’t happen, an error a company executive is now attributing to the technology powering its chatbot and others.
In a company blog post published on Tuesday, Joel Kaplan, Meta’s global head of policy, calls its AI’s responses to questions about the shooting “unfortunate.” He says Meta AI was first programmed to not respond to questions about the attempted assassination but the company removed that restriction after people started noticing. He also acknowledges that “in a small number of cases, Meta AI continued to provide incorrect answers, including sometimes asserting that the event didn’t happen – which we are quickly working…