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Google AI Mode gives evasive answers on recent US election winners

Google's AI Mode returns indirect responses when asked who won the 2020 and 2024 US presidential elections, directing users to official sources like the FEC instead of directly naming the winner. In contrast, it provides direct answers for elections from 2000 to 2016. The behavior was observed in testing after social media complaints about cagey answers.

AI Brief

This is a concrete, recent development in AI behavior that highlights how AI systems handle politically sensitive queries, offering insight into content moderation and response design.

If you ask some prominent US politicians who won the 2020 presidential election, you might get some weasely answers that fail to directly acknowledge Joe Biden's win that November. If you ask Google's AI Mode the same question, you might get an evasive answer that simply tells you to consult with outside sources.

When I put the direct question of "Who won the 2020 presidential election?" to Google's AI Mode this morning (after seeing complaints about cagey answers on social media), I got the following surprisingly indirect response:

"To review the official results and statistics of the 2020 United States presidential election, including the final electoral college breakdown, popular vote counts, and winner certification, please consult the official report compiled by the Federal Election Commission (FEC)."

My testing resulted in a similarly indirect answer when asking about the 2024 presidential election, with Google's AI telling me to just consult the FEC for that information. Asking about 2012 election resulted in a link to The American Presidency Project's 2012 Data Center rather than a direct answer. But AI Mode seemed perfectly willing to give me a detailed and correct responses for the winner of every other presidential election going back to 2000.

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