(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) New York Attorney General Letitia James told the Big Tech companies to “protect voters” from “misinformation” about the 2024 election.
In the letter obtained by ABC News, James claimed that artificial intelligence poses a risk to voters during the race. She sent the letter to Google, OpenAI, Twitter, Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, and six other companies.
“While misinformation has been a concern in past elections, with the rise of gen AI, barriers that prevent bad actors from creating deceptive or misleading content have weakened dramatically,” James wrote in the letter.
ABC mentioned memes made of Kamala Harris that showed a video of her and changed her words, with James claiming that these jokes pose a risk to voters. A robocall that reportedly mimicked Joe Biden’s voice was also referenced, encouraging voters to “save your vote” for the 2024 election.
However, James is a hypocrite. The Post Millennial reported that Douglass Mackey, who shared a meme in the 2016 election season that told Hillary Clinton voters to text their votes, was prosecuted and sentenced to prison time in the state, while Kristina Wong, who put out a video telling Trump voters to vote the day after election day, was not prosecuted.
In July 2024, secretaries of state from Pennsylvania, Washington, New Mexico, Michigan and Minnesota sent a public letter to Elon Musk calling for Twitter’s AI “Grok” to direct voters to CanIVote.org, which fellow AI platforms ChatGPT and OpenAI do.
“As tens of millions of voters in the U.S. seek basic information about voting in this major election year, X has the responsibility to ensure all voters using your platform have access to guidance that reflects true and accurate information about their constitutional right to vote,” the letter stated.
ABC added that James’s letter “said nothing about the companies’ obligation to comply.” However, since the letter is coming from the attorney general’s office, the Big Tech companies would be forced to comply if they don’t decide to do so themselves.
