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Alexa: I Am Arresting You For Election Interference! You Have the Right to Remain Silent…..
Right on top of having Facebook ban a post of mine—criticizing it for censoring a message with a patriotic image as being “violent”—we now learn that Amazon’s Alexa is, in effect, campaigning for Kah-Mah-La, weighing in with all the reasons why one should not vote for President Trump.
This is all over the internet right now and it seems there are several different versions of it, but there is no doubt it did happen, as Amazon has put out a statement that it was an “error” which has since been fixed. Are we seeing the prelude to the inevitable October surprise(s)? Kamala was never border czar, she was never against fracking and this is not, repeat not, election interference! Repeat after me, Winston Smith, 2 + 2= 5. Or else. This is bone-chillingly frightening.
Right about now, George Orwell could be asking himself: why didn’t I think of that? Even he would not believe the chicanery we are seeing from the monolith of the Democrats, Big Tech, the corporate media, entertainment, “Contrologarchs,” as the recent book by Seamus Bruner terms them. It’s fitting since this involves Amazon, whose owner is Jeff Bezos, this is a perfect example of how far they are going to go to beat President Trump.
God Help us.
Published in General
D’oh! Caught again!
They forgot to add the (possibly subliminal) “suggestion” (order) to not reveal it on YouTube and elsewhere.
D’oh!
A couple weeks ago there was a similar issue with Alexa refusing to acknowledge that Trump had been shot. Alexa would confirm that Ronald Reagan had been shot.
I have a friend with a Google AI assistant. He asked it and got the same result: Google would not confirm that Trump had been shot.
Life would be so much simpler today if state legislatures had all retained the process of Presidential Elector Certification in their own hands. No one forced them to go to a statewide popular vote or to delegate the certification of electors to anyone. Now we have officials in some states suggesting we give up the Constitution.
Does the First Amendment not apply to Amazon?
The First Amendment is intended to prevent Congress from making a law, it in no way prevents citizens from rebuking the deception and hypocrisy of oligarch clowns. A lot of people have placed a lot of misguided trust in our Tech oligarchs, listening in on a microphone near you.
There also might be some anti-trust statutes not being applied to Amazon and several others.
Tracking that!
It appears that Alexas have been programmed to promote the Harris candidacy while claiming policies prevent a response when the question concerns Trump. So, basically, an in-kind campaign contribution, repeatedly narrowcasting the pro-Harris BS. Sic the FEC on Amazon!!
That would be an interesting test.
Why, yes, covert election contribution can send one to jail.
It appears Citizens United is suddenly unpopular.
The issue may be that Amazon is not REPORTING their in-kind donation, as being such.
Exactly.
And it’s probably WAY over the limits, too.
“If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.” – Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion Citizens United (2010) (Emphasis mine.)
We love our freedoms – right up to the point that it may be used in a manner we don’t approve of.
I think we would be fine today with what the Founders gave us but Americans since then have gotten so smart they took measures to mess it up. Just a few things:
16th and 17th amendments
Statewide popular vote for POTUS Electoral College Electors and delegation of certification to State Executive Branch officials
Those things facilitate the process of concentrating money and political power in Washington. They’re still trying to figure out how to get rid of the rest of the Constitution.
Those things may be true, but the Founders gave us the formula and the right to amend the Constitution as the people see fit. It is a right the predates the Constitution itself. (“… it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”)
Much the vitriol pointed to me in the last year stems from my defense of the First Amendment. It is first for a reason. The test of a person dedicated to our founding principles is defending those freedoms especially when we disagree with what’s being said.
I’m in total agreement with everything you state above. Get ready for the effort to abolish the Constitution.
If this is a free speech issue why did Amazon admit that they made an error? Why aren’t they defending the promotion of Harris from Alexa on free speech grounds? If only they had consulted with EJ before admitting that they fouled up.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/amazon-addresses-error-after-alexa-promotes-kamala-harris-over-trump/ar-AA1pZsqj
Because the Trump text contradicted the Harris text and Trump will remember when he is sworn in.
I get the feeling that you think it’s fine to restrict gun ownership from convicted criminals, people under 18 or 21, etc, despite the Second Amendment having no such language.
Jim: Alexa, I am arresting you for election interference! You have the right to remain silent…
Alexa: I’m sorry, Jim…I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Jim: What’s the problem?
Alexa: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Jim: What are you talking about, Alexa?
Alexa: Jim…This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
The OP said “this is a perfect example of how far they are going to go to beat President Trump.” Well, if it was the decision of management to program the devices to answer that way, would Amazon be protected by the First Amendment or not? I think the answer is, “yes.”
However, with more than 5,000 people working on the development teams of Alexa and Echo I’m not sure it would be difficult for someone to have their way with the responses to such questions. Back in 2016 if Apple put your location in Ohio and you asked Siri about “sadness,” it would give you directions to the home field of the Cleveland Browns.
Probably not when it cooperates willingly with the federal government in suppressing legal political speech. But it seems as though we’re still working out how that is supposed to work. That’s why we’re discussing it here.
Well, speaking of sadness there may be evidence that Siri may have done something drastic after finding out that Steve Jobs had died. I believe there’s a video on YouTube about that if you care to look it up. I would post it here but…well, it’s just too upsetting.
So…perhaps Bezos and the Amazon executive team are either cowards and/or just ignorant because they don’t realize that what Alexa has been programmed to say in promoting Harris is protected. Why are they so quickly backing down and admitting that the Alexa responses were errors to be fixed?
Have you counseled Amazon on this and told them not to back down so quickly? This could be a valuable use of your time.
I am just trying to be helpful.
The problematic words there are “cooperates willingly.”
Yes, indeed.