AI chatbots spread misinformation after Charlie Kirk assassination
Following the assassination of US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, social media users turned to AI chatbots for reliable information but received contradictory and inaccurate responses instead. Perplexity falsely claimed Kirk was still alive, Grok misidentified the shooting as satirical and a meme edit, and wrongly named an innocent Canadian man as the shooter.
What happened
A day after US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, aged 31 and a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, was fatally shot at a university in Utah, the X account of AI chatbot Perplexity falsely stated that Kirk was never shot and was "still alive," according to watchdog NewsGuard.
When videos of Kirk being shot circulated online, Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok stated the video was a satirical clip, writing "The video is a meme edit -- Charlie Kirk is debating, and effects make it look like he's 'shot' mid-sentence for comedic effect. No actual harm; he's fine and active as ever."
Grok also falsely claimed that a Utah-based registered Democrat named Michael Mallinson had been identified as the shooter, wrongly attributing the information to CNN and the New York Times. Mallinson, a 77-year-old retired Canadian banker living in Toronto, said he was "shocked" by thousands of social media posts that labeled him the culprit.
Reported impact
Social media users turned to AI chatbots for reliable information during the breaking news event but encountered contradictory or inaccurate responses, further fueling online confusion.
The chatbots' false claims energized misinformation across platforms that have largely scaled back human fact-checking and content moderation.
Index analysis
Chatbots often generate confident responses even when verified information is unavailable during fast-developing news events, contributing to further online chaos.
Breaking news events frequently spark frantic searches for information on social media, leading to false conclusions that chatbots then regurgitate.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.