Chatbots may have been behind US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, according to critics. The tariffs, which will come into effect on 9 April, will apply to 60 countries including Malaysia.
The announcement has left the public baffled, and not just because of the rates of up to 50%. Apparently, Trump is also attempting to impose tariffs on regions that do not export goods to the US, such as Norfolk Island. These tariffs are also set to apply to some uninhabited islands in Antarctica, which are uninhabited and home to only penguins.
Guess where they got their weird trade deficit math from?
While the US Trade Representative has explained how the Trump administration calculated the tariffs, it is speculated that the rates were not calculated as claimed. Social media users have suggested the possibility that AI chatbots were used to generate the tariff rates. Several users have shared screenshots of chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok producing similar calculations. Some of the bots have also warned against oversimplified math.
It is worth nothing that similar responses from the chatbots aren’t necessarily concrete proof that the Trump administration used AI in their calculations. It’s also likely that the chatbots’ answers matched the administration’s approach by sheer coincidence.
While Trump may have intended for the tariffs as a way to push back on those intending to take advantage of the US, his proposed plan may end up hurting US companies in the end. Not long after the announcement, Apple’s shares dropped by more than 6%.
(Source: Ars Technica)
