House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan has launched an investigation into 16 American technology firms, including Google and OpenAI, to uncover potential evidence of alleged AI censorship and collusion with the Biden Administration. In a series of letters sent on Thursday, Jordan requested past communications between the companies and the administration that might suggest the former President "coerced or colluded" with companies to "censor lawful speech" in AI products.

The investigation is the latest phase in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and Silicon Valley, with Jordan previously leading an inquiry into whether the Biden Administration and Big Tech colluded to silence conservative voices on social media platforms. This time, Jordan is turning his attention to AI companies and their intermediaries, citing a report published by his committee in December that allegedly "uncovered the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to control AI to suppress speech."

The letters, addressed to tech executives including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, request information from companies such as Adobe, Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Cohere, IBM, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Palantir, Salesforce, Scale AI, and Stability AI. The companies have until March 27 to provide the requested information.

Most companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Nvidia, Microsoft, and Stability AI declined to comment. Notably, billionaire Elon Musk's frontier AI lab, xAI, was omitted from Jordan's list, potentially due to Musk's close ties to the Trump administration and his vocal stance on AI censorship.

The investigation comes as several tech companies have already made changes to their AI chatbots to handle politically sensitive queries. OpenAI, for instance, announced earlier this year that it was altering the way it trains AI models to represent more perspectives and ensure ChatGPT wasn't censoring certain viewpoints. Anthropic has also introduced a new AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, designed to refuse to answer fewer questions and provide more nuanced responses on controversial subjects.

Other companies, however, have been slower to adapt. Google's Gemini chatbot, for example, still refuses to respond to political queries, even well after the 2024 U.S. election. This has led to accusations of censorship and bias, with some tech executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that the Biden Administration pressured them to suppress certain content like COVID-19 misinformation.

The investigation has significant implications for the tech industry, as it raises questions about the role of government in regulating AI development and the potential for political bias in AI systems. As the debate around AI censorship continues to intensify, it remains to be seen how the tech industry will respond to Jordan's inquiry and what consequences may arise from the investigation.

In the broader context, the investigation highlights the ongoing struggle for power and influence between the tech industry and the government. As AI technology continues to advance and play an increasingly prominent role in our lives, the need for clear guidelines and regulations around its development and use becomes more pressing. The outcome of Jordan's investigation will likely have far-reaching consequences for the future of AI and its impact on society.