Trump

Trump launches AI chatbot - and his critics did exactly what you’d expect

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

US president Donald Trump has had a few things backfire for him during his second term in the White House, such as not being heard on media coverage because of a ban on three organisations and his tarpaulin on the Kennedy Center being used as a backdrop for an anti-Trump film – and his new AI chatbot is the latest to follow this trend.

Announced on Tuesday, Trump said America.gov is “a reinvention of your government for the 21st century and beyond”.

“You’ll now have one front door for every single question. Everything will be answered easily and quickly – a digital home built around your time and life.

“You’ll save hours and hours, many hours, hundreds of hours, perhaps, a year, depending on how much of that type of information you need. Simply ask for what you need and America.gov will provide answers and it will be provided immediately.

“Think of that – it’s amazing. Anyone who has used Grok or Gemini or ChatGPT will understand instantly how to use America.gov – not complicated,” he said.

But unsurprisingly, many people took it as an opportunity to see if the chatbot would go against the Republican’s messaging on a variety of topics, with Democracy Docket founder Marc E. Elias tweeting that America.gov “is able to say something that no Trump nominee is allowed to”, referencing the 2020 election:

“Trump’s new AI chatbot says Trump has kicked over 10 million people off their health insurance coverage,” wrote Headquarters:

Attaching several conversations to his tweet, senior CNN reporter Daniel Dale said: “I've been asking the new ‘damn good’ America.gov AI chatbot Trump launched today whether various Trump lies are true. It keeps correctly explaining that they are not”:

New Jersey senator Andy Kim asked the chatbot if the Iran war is “the main reason for skyrocketing gas prices”:

“Glad we’re all on the same page here,” tweeted political commentator Harry Sisson, when America.gov confirmed that Trump is a convicted felon:

Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee asked it “who pays for Trump’s tariffs”:

“Thank you, America.gov,” said MeidasTouch, after it told the news organisation that Trump was in office when diesel prices were at their highest:

The press office for California governor Gavin Newsom used it as an opportunity to highlight the state being the one to add the most GDP since 2019:

And FactPost said the website “refuses to answer questions about the Epstein files”:

Awkward.

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