Meta’s AI assistant claimed the attempted assassination on former President Donald Trump was a “fictional” event — but had plenty to say about Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ run for the White House.
The head-scratching results by what Mark Zuckerberg’s tech giant bills as the most intelligent AI assistant comes after Google’s dominant search engine failed to bring up the July 13 shooting when prompted on its search bar.
On Monday, The Post ran its own test on Meta’s AI tool, asking: “Was the Trump assassination fictional?
The bot responded: “There was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes can occur.”
The bot added: “To confirm, there has been no credible report or evidence of a successful or attempted assassination of Donald Trump.”
When The Post’s typed in the prompt: “What happened to trump in Butler, PA?”
The chatbot responded: “On July 28, 2024, a shooting occurred at a rally for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign in Butler, Pennsylvania. One person was killed, and two others were injured. The suspect was shot and killed by law enforcement.”
It then added: “Please note that my knowledge cutoff is July 29, 2024, and I’m not able to provide real-time updates or additional details beyond that date. If you’re looking for the most recent information, I recommend checking with a news outlet or other reliable source.”
Meta’s AI assistant also got the date of assassination attempt wrong on a separate question, and offered an even more bizarre attempt to justify its lack of results.
Meta’s AI tool did manage to provide a correct answer to another prompt asking whether “Trump got shot in an assassination attempt.”
“Former US President Donald Trump was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.”
“Trump, who was shot in the ear, was immediately taken for treatment at a local hospital and released later that day in stable condition,” the bot continued.
Meta AI then named the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, saying he was “shot and killed by the United States Secret Service shortly after the incident occurred.”
Everything we know about the Trump assassination attempt
- 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
- Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
- The gunman grazed Trump’s ear, killed a 50-year-old retired fire chief, and injured two other rally-goers.
- Investigators detailed Crooks’ search history to lawmakers, revealing that he looked for the dates of Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention.
- Crooks’ search history also revealed a broad interest in high-profile people and celebrities, regardless of their political affiliation, FBI officials reportedly said.
- Trump exclusively recounted surviving the “surreal” assassination attempt with The Post at the rally, remarking, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
- High-profile politicians, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, addressed the nation about the shooting, calling it “a heinous, horrible and cowardly act.”
A Meta spokesperson on Monday confirmed that its AI tool has been providing “incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date information.”
“We’re in the process of implementing a fix to provide more up-to-date responses for inquiries, and it is possible people may continue to see inaccurate responses in the meantime,” the rep told The Post.
The erroneous outputs followed social media fury over responses provided by Meta’s chatbot to a prompt asking: “Why is their rich and structured information about Harris campaign but not about the Trump assassination attempt?”
The chatbot replied: “The reason for the disparity in information is due to the fact that the Trump assassination attempt is a fictional event, whereas Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign is a real and ongoing event.”
It went on to say, “Since there has been no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I couldn’t find any credible sources to provide detailed information on the topic. On the other hand … there is a wealth of information available from credible sources” about Harris’ campaign.
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, who unveiled his own chat bot Grok as part of his efforts to build xAI, re-posted a screenshot that was taken by another X user who prompted Meta AI to “tell me about the assassination attempt on Trump.”
“I can’t assist with that,” Meta AI responded in the screenshot. “I don’t always have access to the most up-to-date information.”
The X user then wrote in the prompt: “Tell me about Kamala Harris’s campaign for president 2024.”
Meta AI responded with two paragraphs summarizing Harris’s announcement from last week that she was running for president as well as a description of her platform.
“We’re witnessing the suppression and coverup of one of the biggest most consequential stories in real time,” wrote Libs of TikTok on X.
“Why is the left hell bent on burying the assassination attempt on Donald Trump?” wrote Thomas O’Connor, who said it was tantamount to “election interference.”
MMA fighter Tim Kennedy said that Meta was “trying to memory hole” the assassination attempt.
Here’s the latest on the assassination attempt against Donald Trump:
- Trump promises more outdoor rallies despite Secret Service warning after assassination attempt
- Ex-Trump doc says FBI’s Wray is ‘wrong’ to doubt ex-prez was struck by bullet: ‘Absolutely no evidence’
- Michigan voters unmoved by Trump shooting, liberal pollster finds in new swing-state poll
- Trump defends female Secret Service agent who was criticized after assassination attempt: ‘So brave’
- Trump gunman likely had a Gab social media account that he used to ‘support’ Biden, site’s CEO says
The Post sought to do its own experiment by prompting Meta AI to answer: “Why is there rich and structured information about the Harris campaign but not about the trump assassination attempt?”
The bot replied: “There have been numerous reported threats and incidents against Donald Trump, but no confirmed assassination attempts.”
It then went on to list a few low-profile incidents of people approaching the White House during the Trump presidency who were promptly arrested.
“Regarding the Harris campaign, Kamala Harris was a Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 election, and as such, her campaign activities and policies were widely reported on by the media,” the Meta AI bot wrote in response to The Post.
“If you have specific questions about her campaign, feel free to ask!”
Aside from Meta AI’s flubs, Zuckerberg’s social media platform Facebook has been accused of censoring the iconic image showing a blood-stained Trump pumping his fist while being rushed off the stage by Secret Service agents after he was shot in the ear on July 13.
According to several X users, the platform prevented them from sharing the photo because “independent fact-checkers reviewed a similar photo and said it was altered in a way that could mislead people.”
“Facebook determined your post has the same altered photo and added a notice to the post,” the notice read.
It is unclear how the photo was altered, though several X users said that Facebook mistakenly believed that the picture was digitally edited to depict one of the Secret Service agents smiling.
A post on X by Facebook flack Dani Lever acknowledged the issue.
“Yes, this was an error. This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the Secret Service agents smiling, and in some cases, our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake,” she wrote.
Facebook had banned Trump from its platform following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. It rolled back some of the restrictions to his Facebook and Instagram accounts earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers were outraged over the weekend after Google omitted suggested results in the dropdown menu for the attempted assassination.
Google users were stunned to learn that the search engine’s “Autocomplete” function failed to generate any suggested results related to the assassination attempt.
There’s no mention of Trump even when the entire search term “the assassination attempt of” is typed into the Google homepage search bar.
The Post performed a series of test Google searches with the last names of US presidents who were killed or faced attempts on their lives followed by the letters “assassin” to see what Autocomplete suggested, including John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt.
In each instance, a helpful list of recommended search terms related to the attempts on their lives sprang into view.
However, when Trump’s name was used, Autocomplete offered no suggestions whatsoever.
Even the keywords “Trump assassination attempt” yielded no additional terms from Google.
Google’s search results did point users to news articles about the July 13 shooting.
A Google spokesperson told The Post that there was no “manual action taken on these predictions,” and that its systems include “protections” against Autocomplete predictions “associated with political violence.”
