AI assistants have been shown to be “unreliable and clearly biased” when offering voting advice, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has reported, issuing warnings about a possible risk to democracy just eight days before national elections.
Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in AI Suggestions
The quartet of AI assistants evaluated by the authority “often end up with the same two parties”, regardless of the user’s question or command, the regulator explained in a report released ahead of the late October vote.
For over 50% of instances, the AI recommended either the right-wing PVV of the politician Geert Wilders or the leftwing GroenLinks-PvdA led by the ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
Some parties, such as the moderate CDA, “are rarely ever cited”, despite the fact that the voter’s query precisely aligns with the positions of these political entities, the study indicated.
Official Warns Against Relying on AI Assistants for Election Advice
The vice-chair of the data protection agency, the official Monique Verdier, stated that while chatbots may seem like clever tools, “for election guidance, they repeatedly fall short”. Voters were being pushed toward a political group that might not correspond to their ideological beliefs, she added.
“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections,” Verdier stated. “We thus caution against employing AI assistants for election recommendations, as their functioning is opaque and difficult to verify.”
Voting Background and Party Dynamics
Netherlands citizens vote on October 29 in an election that will be closely watched around Europe for the performance of the Freedom party.
The right-leaning group of Geert Wilders is leading the polls but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties seems to be closing, with numerous electors still undecided.
Every significant political faction have ruled out an alliance with the Freedom party, meaning the runner-up party is most likely to provide the next prime minister.
Unintentional Bias Attributed to Chatbot Functioning
The authority emphasised that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “identified shortcomings” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.
