Republican Congressman Jim Jordan asks Big Tech if Biden tried to censor AI

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) has initiated an inquiry into American technology firms, including Google and OpenAI, regarding their past communications with the Biden administration. The focus of the investigation is to determine if there was any coercion or collusion that led to the censorship of lawful speech in AI products.

This move comes after the Trump administration’s tech advisors hinted at a potential clash with Big Tech over “AI censorship,” marking another battleground in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and Silicon Valley. Jordan, who previously led an investigation into alleged collusion between the Biden administration and Big Tech to silence conservative voices on social media, is now shifting his attention to AI companies and their interactions.

In letters sent to technology executives such as Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook, Jordan referenced a committee report that purportedly uncovered efforts by the Biden-Harris administration to control AI for the purpose of suppressing speech. The companies mentioned have until March 27 to provide the requested information.

Notably absent from Jordan’s list is Elon Musk’s xAI lab, possibly due to Musk’s close ties to Trump and his involvement in discussions about AI censorship.

The scrutiny over alleged AI censorship has prompted some tech companies to adjust their AI models to address politically sensitive topics. OpenAI, for example, announced changes to its AI training methods to ensure a broader representation of perspectives in its ChatGPT model. Similarly, Anthropic’s latest AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, aims to provide more nuanced responses on controversial subjects.

While some companies have taken steps to modify their AI models’ handling of political content, others have been slower to make changes. Google, for instance, announced restrictions on its Gemini chatbot’s responses to political queries leading up to the 2024 U.S. election.

Amidst these developments, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks about alleged pressure from the Biden administration on social media companies to suppress certain content have further fueled accusations of censorship by conservatives against Silicon Valley.