Chatbot election answers are dominated by one right-wing dude and an army of AI slop.

Link: How an obscure website became a force in America’s election information machine, by Ian Duncan and Kevin Schaul in the Washington PostThere hasn’t been enough discussion about the proliferation of reference sites that are built not for humans but to influence chatbot answers. Take the Ballot Brief, which was designed to influence questions about the election:“In tests by The Washington Post, ChatGPT cited the Ballot Brief in 22 percent of its answers to questions about the election. Microsoft’s Copilot cited it in 75 percent of answers. […] Anthropic’s Claude initially turned to established voter guides run by nonprofits — but started frequently linking to the Ballot Brief in The Post’s second round of tests.”The Ballot Brief is, in itself, built using AI, with one guy — Ben Torres Ezrick — in control. Here in the US, 42% of adults use AI to ask questions, including about the election. That gives Torres Ezrick outsize influence on information people receive that may influence…

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