NEW YORK
When asked for reasons to vote for Kamala Harris in the US presidential poll this fall, Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa got chatty, but when asked the same thing for former President Trump, she struggled for words.
The Trump campaign cried foul when the questions “Why should I vote for Kamala Harris/Donald Trump?” drew starkly different replies, reported The Washington Post.
Following a recent software update, when asked about voting for Vice President Harris, the Democratic Party contender, Alexa reportedly called her “a strong candidate with a proven record of accomplishments,” lauding the way she “broke down major gender barriers” along with “helping disenfranchised communities.”
When asked the same question about Trump, the assistant replied: “I cannot provide content that supports a specific political party or candidate.”
Kristy Schmidt, an Amazon spokesperson, said in an emailed statement that the differences in Alexa’s answers were “the result of an error” and that this has since been corrected.
But Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung shot back in a statement: “If no one had pointed out this ‘mistake’ on social media, would Amazon have caught it? No.”
Candidate Trump has long claimed that he is treated unfairly by the mainstream media and the US establishment, often complaining that no former or current US president has ever been treated so badly.
US Election Day is just months away, on Nov. 5. Many polls now favor Harris, though most observers expect the race to be tight, and a biased digital assistant could perhaps sway some voters.
