Meta makes conservative activist an AI bias advisor following lawsuit

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck will serve as an advisor at Meta to address “ideological and political bias” within the company’s AI chatbot, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The move comes as part of a settlement Meta reached with Starbuck, who filed a lawsuit claiming Meta AI wrongly stated he was involved in the January 6th Capitol riot.

Starbuck has waged public pressure campaigns against companies that have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, with companies like Tractor Supply, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson dropping their DEI efforts as a result. According to a lawsuit filed in April, Starbuck claims he discovered Meta AI’s false output after a Harley-Davidson dealer published a screenshot from Meta’s AI chatbot linking Starbuck to the Capitol riot and QAnon. 

Now, following President Donald Trump’s executive order to make AI less “woke,” Starbuck will advise Meta on bias. “Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias,” Meta and Starbuck said in a statement to the WSJ.

During an interview with CNBC, Starbuck declined to say whether Meta paid him to resolve the lawsuit. “I’m one person, but this could cause a lot of problems across the entire industry when it comes to elections and political bias, and we wanted to be leaders in solving this problem,” Starbuck said during the interview. Earlier this year, Meta paid $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over the suspensions of his accounts.

Other people have attempted to file lawsuits alleging AI chatbot defamation. Conservative radio host Mark Walters filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in 2023, alleging that ChatGPT falsely stated that Walters was accused of embellishing funds from a non-profit organization. A judge granted summary judgment in favor of OpenAI and dismissed the defamation claim in May.