USA Meta's chatbot denies Trump assassination attempt
An AI chatbot that denied the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has put the Facebook company Meta in need of an explanation. Meta refers to so-called "hallucinations", in which artificial intelligence software simply makes things up. The industry has not yet found a fundamental solution to the problem.
31.07.2024, 08:08
SDA
Meta had to justify itself after criticism from the political camp of Trump supporters. It was denounced that the Meta AI chatbot first refused to answer questions about the assassination attempt on the ex-president - and then claimed in part that it had never taken place.
The company explained in a blog post that it had deliberately not allowed Meta AI to talk about the assassination attempt on July 13. This is because headline-grabbing events are often surrounded by contradictory information and unfounded speculation, including conspiracy theories.
Meta: "Unfortunate", but not intentional
But even after the AI chatbot was fed information about the attack, it claimed "in a few cases" that it had not happened, Meta admitted. This was "unfortunate", but not intentional.
The "hallucinations" are a general problem with AI chatbots and have to do with how the software works. The programs are initially trained with huge amounts of information. When responding to user queries, they then weigh up word for word how a sentence should probably continue.
As a result, the software can throw together completely incorrect statements, even if it has only been trained with correct information. AI developers are trying to get to grips with the problem with the help of additional guard rails for the programs.
Fact check label on the wrong photo
In a second problem, a photo showing Trump with his bodyguards immediately after the assassination attempt was incorrectly given a fact-check label. This was originally a manipulated version of the image in which a smile had been added to the faces of the bodyguards. However, the difference between the two photos was difficult for Meta's automated systems to recognize - and they also added the fact check label to the original photo.
In the assassination attempt, a man had shot at Trump during a campaign appearance in the state of Pennsylvania. The bullets killed one spectator and wounded two others. The ex-president was hit in the ear.
