Meet 'America': Trump’s AI chatbot changes answers after challenging his claims

Donald Trump has launched “America”, an AI chatbot designed as a digital portal for US government information. But its responses appear to be changing. The chatbot initially challenged several of Trump’s claims, including on the 2020 election and inflation, providing evidence and links. More recently, it has refused to answer some of the same questions. Other responses still contradict Trump, while some echo his views. Vedika Bahl tests the chatbot, and its varying answers in Truth or Fake.

Donald Trump has launched a new AI-powered government chatbot, America.gov, which he has described as a “one front door for every single question” for Americans seeking information about the government.

The platform is designed to bring information from 29,000 US government websites into a single portal. But its launch has drawn attention for another reason: because the chatbot was challenging Trump's own false claims and fact-checking them, and then changed course entirely by refusing to answer certain questions.

We tested the chatbot by asking whether there was widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. It responded that it only answers questions about US government services: "I help with official U.S. government services and information. I do not comment on political or legal status of individuals." We received the same response when asking whether Trump had been convicted of felony charges. We also asked about Trump’s own claim that he inherited the “worst inflation in history”. Again, the chatbot declined to answer.

Those responses differed from answers reported earlier in the rollout.

CNN senior correspondent and longtime Trump fact-checker Daniel Dale asked America.gov about the 2020 election and received an answer that contradicted Trump’s claim that the election was stolen. The chatbot cited official information showing that there was no widespread fraud that changed the outcome. Dale also received a response rejecting Trump’s claim about inheriting the worst inflation in history and providing supporting figures.

Newsweek also reported receiving an answer confirming that Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. When we asked the same question, the chatbot declined to answer.

The changes appear to extend beyond those questions. Some responses still contradict Trump. For example, when asked about climate change - which Trump has long called a "hoax" - the chatbot said US scientific agencies attribute current warming largely to human activity, and that the Earth is indeed getting warmer.

But on other issues, the chatbot follows terminology adopted by the Trump administration. Asked about the Gulf of Mexico, for example, it referred to the body of water as the “Gulf of America”. It also referred to the Pentagon as the headquarters of the “Department of War”, following Trump’s order to use that name alongside the official Department of Defense designation.

It remains unclear how  to what extent this AI will be modified. During our testing, we received different answers to some questions depending on the browser used, or different answers to the same questions in general. Responses also varied when questions were asked in different languages, with some responses more detailed.

What is clear is that America.gov's responses have changed during its rollout, and that Trump's chatbot "America" is no longer fact-checking or challenging some of Trump's claims, and refusing to answer instead.