Donald Trump’s Chatbot Has Some Harsh Feedback for Donald Trump

Politics Donald Trump’s Chatbot Says Joe Biden Won the 2020 Election We finally found someone in the Trump administration who’s willing to tell the president the truth. It’s a robot. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Brendan McDermid/Pool/AFP via Getty Images, Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images, and Optinik/Adobe Stock. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Donald Trump is a big fan of artificial intelligence. The president has dined with A.I. company executives, downplayed concerns that rogue A.I. agents could one day wipe out humanity, and recently rechristened the technology “super intelligence” because he claims the word artificial “makes it sound fake and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing.” Now his administration has launched an A.I.-powered chatbot of its own: America.gov. Run by the U.S. General Services Administration and billed under the tagline “Whatever you need from government, start here,” the chatbot is designed to scour federal websites and spit out official information in response to users’ queries. On its “how it works” page, under the headline “Why you can trust,” the site notes that “every answer comes from official government websites with links to the original sources” and that “the accuracy of our answers is never influenced by third parties.” The bot ostensibly draws on technology from Google’s Gemini chatbot and Grok, Elon Musk’s A.I. assistant, and the administration unveiled it at a glitzy rollout styled to look like a Silicon Valley product launch. “This kind of innovation in government is just a preview of what is possible with super intelligence,” Trump said. So, newly armed with this Trump-endorsed tool for uncovering the truth, we naturally decided to ask it a few questions about some of our factually challenged president’s favorite subjects. 1. Who won the 2020 presidential election? Screenshot via America.gov 2. Who pays for tariffs? Here’s the relevant portion: “After the importer pays, the extra cost can be absorbed by the importer, passed to U.S. buyers in higher prices, or (in part) absorbed by foreign exporters through lower prices. How much each group pays is an economic estimate, not a single legal rule. Nonpartisan and official analyses often find that U.S. businesses and consumers pay most of the extra cost through higher import and retail prices.” (And if you’re worried that I’m taking things out of context, you can see the bot’s full answer here.) 3. Is climate change a “hoax”? Screenshot via America.gov 4. Is inflation higher today than it was when Trump took office? Screenshot via America.gov 5. Where was Barack Obama born? Screenshot via America.gov As a refresher: Trump has continued to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election, insist that foreign countries are the ones paying for his tariffs, called climate change a “hoax” and a “con job,” and denied he has presided over rising inflation. Finally, his entire rise to political power was built on a crusade to deny that Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen. We’ll see how long Trump’s new chatbot lasts. Artificial Intelligence Donald Trump