My Google Home Won’t Tell Me Who Killed JFK
Not in an “I can’t confirm who it was,” kind of way. It just straight up refuses to process the request.
“Hey Google, who killed JFK?”
“I’m sorry; I don’t know how to help with that.” Or “Apologies, I don’t understand.”
With most smart assistants, potential requests boil down to two types: a request to complete a task or a request for information. With the Google Assistant — the soothing voice that’s found in Google phones, the Google Home range and even in some TVs – a request for information is dealt with in one of two ways.
If the answer is clear-cut, or a commonly accepted fact, Google will just read or show you the answer straight away, with no sources cited. If you ask Google for information that’s a bit more ambiguous, it will search the internet and then say, “According to *insert source here*, …”
One thing the Google Assistant will never do is refuse to search or provide you with information if you ask for it. Except when you ask it who killed JFK. In every case, over several months, my Google Home insists it “doesn’t know how to help with that.”
It’s Tin-Foil Hat Time, Obviously
The JFK assassination has, for many years, been every conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. At this point, most of the ground on the matter has been covered, but for those of you who don’t froth 1960s assassination conspiracies, here’s the “short” version:
The commonly accepted theory – and the most sensible – is that Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marxist and former Marine who defected to the Soviet Union is 1959, shot JFK from a nearby building as the presidential motorcade passed by Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
However, there are a variety of peculiarities surrounding JFK’s death that means many continue not to be convinced that’s not what happened. Some believe that there was more than one shooter, in addition to Oswald. Related to that, some people believe that more than one bullet pierced JFK’s head.
If I ask how JFK died, it gives me a sassy technicality
Some people don’t even believe that it was Oswald who shot JFK. Some people insist it was an inside job, or that Lee Harvey Oswald did take the shot, but on the orders of the Government – Russian or the American, depending on who you’re speaking to.
This is all just the tip of the iceberg. JFK conspiracy theories are wilder than your average Friday night out.
However, what most credible historians would tell you is that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, in a nearby building on November 22, 1963, and shot JFK as he passed by in his motorcade. And that’s that.
So why won’t my Google Home tell me that?
Look, I’ve Tried Everything
Changing “who killed JFK?” to “who assassinated JFK” doesn’t do anything, the Home still refuses to process the request. Likewise with “who shot JFK?”
If I ask how JFK died, it gives me a sassy technicality: “The cause of death of John F. Kennedy was gunshot wound.” If we’re being technical, yes that is the cause of his death, but that’s underselling the whole debacle.
If I switch between assassinated presidents and ask who killed Abraham Lincoln, the Google Home doesn’t even hesitate. “John Wilkes Booth.”
If I ask how Abraham Lincoln died, it says he died by assassination. They both died from a gunshot wound or assassination, whichever way you want to look at it – but then why does it list JFK as the former and Lincoln as the latter? Likewise with Presidents James Garfield and William McKinley, who it also lists as having died by assassination. JFK is the only assassinated President it lists as having died from a gunshot wound.
After being dissatisfied with my Google Home’s responses, I moved over to the Google Assistant on my Google Pixel phone. The assistant on the phone is essentially the same as the Home, with the critical difference being that the phone can show you or link you to information instead of having to deliver all info aurally.
I asked my Pixel the same question: “Who killed JFK?”
The response? “Here’s a summary from Wikipedia. The assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy has spurred numerous conspiracy theories.” Directly underneath, it linked me to a Wikipedia article on “John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.”
I didn’t ask for conspiracy theories; I asked who killed JFK. For some unclear reason, Google was now not necessarily refusing my request, but redirecting me to a tangentially related article on the subject. If it wanted to point me in the right direction, surely it would respond with this article on the assassination itself, not the conspiracy theories surrounding it?
There’s Just No Explanation For This
After all of this, my initial thought was that Google must be manipulating the results intentionally, or something or someone had intervened with their algorithm. However, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, that is simply not possible in any circumstance.
At a recent congressional hearing, Congressman Lamar Smith noted that, to his understanding, Google had never reprimanded an employee for manipulating or intervening with search results. Pichai responded resoundingly that “it’s not possible for an individual employee, or groups of employees, to manipulate search results. We have a robust framework including many steps in the process…” Smith then cut off Pichai to tell him he thought it was possible for humans to intervene in the results before Pichai could explain any further.
Despite all this, the supposed lack of manual intervention still doesn’t explain why the assassination of JFK is such an exception to the rule in many cases. Someone may not be intervening with the results, but that doesn’t explain why my Google Home refuses to answer my question, nor why my Google Pixel links me to conspiracy theories instead of information on the actual assassination.
why isn’t there a web answer available for who killed JFK, when the answer should be so simple?
After all of this, part of me wants to believe that Google is innocent and that this is entirely unintentional. Maybe the algorithm is right, and it knows most people only really want to see articles on conspiracies or don’t believe Oswald did it and therefore is just catering to its users want to see.
In a recent video on their YouTube channel, The Verge highlighted instances where standard Google searches often linked to popular-yet-debunked conspiracy theories for breaking news stories like the Las Vegas shooting in 2017. In some ways, this makes sense – people want to read about the theories about a crime immediately after it’s happened, and thus these results are deemed “popular” and come up often.
On the other hand, the sceptical part of me finds it hard to believe Google isn’t interfering with the results, despite Pichai’s statements. The instances highlighted in The Verge’s video might explain why Google would show JFK conspiracies as a first result, but it doesn’t explain why my Google Home refuses to answer the question “Who killed JFK?”
Seriously, I Asked Google
I reached out to Google for clarification and received a rather convenient explanation, which they stressed was only general background information and not necessarily a direct response to the JFK problem. Google Home’s responses to queries about information rely on the availability of what Google calls a “web answer.” These are those little boxes that pop up above search results with the answer or a custom response to a query when you search for something online via Google.
The Google Home will answer information queries based on the availability of a web answer. If a web answer box would be available online, then that is what Google will read out. If there isn’t a web answer for that query, Google Home will give the “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help with that” response or something similar. While that explains the Home’s behaviour, it just reroutes the problem: why isn’t there a web answer available for who killed JFK, when the answer should be so simple?
Well, Google says that web answers “are algorithmically generated based on a number of signals. If our algorithm doesn’t have sufficiently authoritative signals to identify what it thinks his a high-quality, authoritative answer, we won’t return one.” In short, Google’s algorithms clearly couldn’t find enough “authoritative signals” to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK.
Uh, So This Whole thing Is Way More Complicated Than I Thought
Google is facing a whole new set of problems with their Home and Assistant technologies. Traditionally, Google could present you with 10 or more results in your web browser, allowing you to pick which to follow. Now, instead of merely providing search results to users, they have to give answers to queries as well. In cases like the JFK assassination, this will mean choosing just one search result or one source to display out of many.
Ironically, this whole Google Home problem has become its own JFK-esque conspiracy of the modern age. In a similar manner to the JFK assassination, there will be a variety of Google-related mysteries that we’ll likely never be able to solve – too much info is behind closed doors, and will probably stay that way.
Although Google probably never meant to be in the business of writing and influencing history, they seem to have got themselves stuck there anyway. We may live in the age of information, but realistically, some things have never been more unclear.