On Friday, Perplexity launched an election information hub that depends on knowledge from The Related Press and Democracy Works to offer stay updates and details about the 2024 US basic election, which takes place on Tuesday, November 5.
“Beginning Tuesday, we’ll offer stay updates on elections utilizing knowledge from The Related Press so you possibly can keep knowledgeable on presidential, senate, and home races at each a state and nationwide degree,” Perplexity wrote in a weblog put up. The positioning will pull knowledge from particular knowledge sources (referred to as APIs) hosted by the 2 organizations.
As of Monday, Perplexity’s hub at the moment gives interactive info on voting necessities, ballot occasions, and summaries about poll measures, candidates, coverage positions, and endorsements. Customers can ask questions concerning the info much like utilizing a chatbot like ChatGPT.
Perplexity’s embrace of offering election info is an exception within the AI subject. Cautious about by chance offering misinformation, competitor AI assistants from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic at the moment direct customers elsewhere or decline to reply election questions. OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search directs election end result queries to The Related Press and Reuters.
Accuracy considerations
Perplexity describes its new elections hub as “an entry level for understanding key points.” However like different AI fashions, Perplexity can produce confabulations (believable incorrect info) when producing responses. That might current an accuracy downside as a result of the location’s Voter Information service makes use of AI language fashions to summarize and interpret info pulled from the online.