‘Woke’ AI Is the Latest Threat to Free Speech
Politicians seem increasingly intent on modeling artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their own likenesses—and their plans could sneakily undermine free speech.
For Republicans, the ruse involves fighting “woke” AI. The Trump administration is reportedly readying an executive order aimed at preventing AI chatbots from being too politically correct.
Conservatives complaining about AI systems being too progressive is nothing new.
And, sure, the way some generative AI tools have been trained and programmed has led to some silly—and reality-distorting—outcomes. See, for instance, the great black pope and Asian Nazi debacle of 2024 from Google Gemini.
Of course, we also have an AI system, Grok, that has called itself MechaHitler and endorsed anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
That’s the free market, baby.
And, all glibness aside, it’s way better than the alternative.
When the Cure Is Worse Than the Disease
Both Gemini and Grok have been retooled to avoid similar snafus going forward. But the fact remains that different tech companies have different standards and safeguards baked into their AI systems, and these may lead these systems to yield different results.
Unconscious biases baked into AI will continue to produce some biased information. But the trick to combating this isn’t some sort of national anti–woke AI policy but teaching AI literacy—ensuring that everyone knows that the version of reality reflected by AI tools may be every bit as biased as narratives produced by humans.
And, as the market for AI tools continues to grow, consumers can also assert preferences as they always do in marketplaces: by choosing the products that they think are best. For some, this might mean that more biased systems are actually more appealing; for others, systems that produce the most neutral results will be the most useful.
Whatever problems might result from private choices here, I’m way more worried about the deleterious effects of politicians trying to combat “woke” or “discriminatory” AI.
The forthcoming Trump executive order “would dictate that AI companies getting federal contracts be politically neutral and unbiased in their AI models, an effort to combat what administration officials see as liberal bias in some models,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
That might seem unobjectionable at first blush. But while we might wish AI models be “neutral and unbiased”—just as we might wish the same about TV news programs, or magazine articles, or social media moderation—the fact is that private companies, be they television networks or publishers or tech companies, have a right to make their products as biased as they want. It’s up to consumers to decide if they prefer neutral models or not.
Granted, the upcoming order is not expected to try and mandate such a requirement across the board but to stipulate that this is mandatory for AI companies getting federal contracts. That seems fair enough in theory, but in practice, not likely.
Look at the recent letters sent to tech companies by the attorney general of Missouri, who argues that AI tools are biased by not listing Trump as the best president on antisemitism issues.
Look at the past decade of battles over social media moderation, during which the left and the right have both cried “bias” over decisions that don’t favor their preferred views.
Look at the way every recent presidential administration has tried to tie education funding to supporting or rejecting certain ideologies surrounding sex, gender, race, etc.
“Because nearly all major tech companies are vying to have their AI tools used by the federal government, the order could have far-reaching impacts and force developers to be extremely careful about how their models are developed,” the Journal suggests.
To put it more bluntly, tech companies could find themselves having to retool AI models to fit the sensibilities and biases of Trump—or whoever is in power—in order to get lucrative contracts.
Sure, principled companies could opt out of trying for government contracts. But that just means that whoever builds the most sycophantic AI chatbots will be the ones powering the federal government. And those
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