When I asked Regarding the new truth social AI chatbot that leads to bias in the media ecosystem, it gives me advice that I think is fairly reasonable.
“Dive your resources,” it replied. “Rely on news media in the political arena, including those with left-leaning and right-leaning perspectives.”
This is a suggestion that AI itself may not keep in mind. For example, the above answer cited five sources, four of which are Fox News articles. Inexplicably, it is a 400-page report from U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services titled “Treatment for Children’s Gender Irritability.”
Truth Society owner Trump Media & Technology Group launched a chatbot called “Truth Search AI” on Wednesday. The bot is powered by confusing AI, which answers questions using large language models and real-time web searches. The company received investments from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and former Coinbase CTO and influential investor Balaji Srinivasan.
In 2024, Wired published an article detailing how to scratch a portion of a website that developers don’t want it to visit, violating the widely accepted web standards known as the “robot exclusion protocol.” This also makes things happen.
While the confusing AI is derived from the sources of left and centers, the Truth Search AI version never cites the center or left-leaning sources in dozens of tests conducted by Dired. In fact, the chatbot highlighted seven sources only for my queries (Fox News, Fox Business, The Washington Times, The Epoch Times, Breitbart, Newsmax, Newsmax and JustTheNews.com). This is true even for harmless non-political issues. When I asked the robot “30 times 30 times?” it came up with an answer from an article in Fox Business, which “The Inflation Reduction Act estimates the inducing mortality rate of 30 times that of Covid”. Similar tests by Axios and The Verge also demonstrate extreme bias against conservative media.
“What you notice is a feature called ‘source selection’,” said Jesse Dwyer, a confusion representative, when I asked the truth about search AI extracted specifically from conservative sources. “Source selection can be filtered for any number of requirements, from internal documents within the organization, custom datasets or in the case you describe, domains. This is their audience selection and we are committed to developer and consumer choice.”
He added that it was confusing that “no discrimination against any developer for any political reasons” and stressed that they “don’t claim that their AI is 100% accurate”.
However, fact-search AI seems to deny its own bias. “I get information from the left, centrist and right-wing news media, depending on the nature of the user’s query and the source returned in the search results,” it said. “My answer is intended to conduct rigorous analysis and synthesis of information from all reliable perspectives to ensure accuracy and balance.” This answer comes from five Fox Business articles. (AI seems to be maximizing with five sources per response.)
