FTC Seeks Comments On Alleged Political Bias in AI Chatbots

The policy statement warned that such manipulation of AI systems could violate Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibiting “unfair or deceptive” conduct. Consumers “have a reasonable expectation that AI systems aim to give truthful and accurate outputs,” the statement says. “Consumers have no basis to believe that AI systems aim to produce outputs that are distorted by undisclosed ideological objectives.”

It added that state laws that regulate AI technology could induce developers to design their systems to produce responses that violate Section 5. An AI company “might be tempted to alter or steer the output of its systems contrary to consumers’ reasonable expectations for various reasons, including attempted compliance with a state law, such as Colorado’s recently revised Artificial Intelligence Act,” the policy statement says. “But steering an AI system in this manner may deceive consumers in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. That is true even if the deceptive steering is done in an effort to comply with state laws.”

The statement singles out Colorado’s landmark AI Act as an example of state law that could coerce developers into introducing ideological bias into their systems.

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“A company could be tempted, for example, to abuse consumer trust by training a model surreptitiously to produce ideologically motivated distortions in a response to a factual question, such as to correct what the developer believes are ‘historical injustices’ in the facts,” the policy statement says. “The original version of Colorado’s Artificial Intelligence Act, 41F 40F 42 for example, imposed a broad duty on AI companies to avoid output that might lead to disparate impacts in various contexts, including when a customer’s foreseeable use of that output could itself create a disparate impact. And the revised version of that law explicitly provides that AI companies can be held liable for discriminatory outcomes caused by their customers’ use of their products.”

Compliance with those mandates, the policy statement says, could constitute unfair or deceptive practices if the user is not made aware of the AI model’s state-imposed constraints.

In a December executive order, Trump directed the FTC to issue a policy statement addressing the legal implications of state laws that require alteration of the “truthful outputs of AI models.”

Leading AI developers are yet to publicly comment on the policy statement.  Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters ⁠for ​comment on the proposal, while Google declined to comment.

“The FTC wants to hear from businesses and consumers about their experiences and concerns regarding the subversion of AI systems for ideological ends,” Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement “This crucial input will help the Commission formulate a final policy that advances President Donald Trump’s goal of expanding America’s global dominance in artificial intelligence.”

The public comment period will be open until July 31. The agency did not say whether or when the policy statement would be formally released.