AI assistants are proving to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when providing election recommendations, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has reported, issuing warnings about a possible risk to democracy just over a week before the country’s general election.
Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in Chatbot Recommendations
The quartet of AI assistants evaluated by the AP “often end up with the same two parties”, regardless of the user’s question or command, the regulator explained in a report published ahead of the late October vote.
In more than half of the cases, the AI recommended either the right-wing PVV of the politician Geert Wilders or the leftwing GroenLinks-PvdA headed by the ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
Some parties, such as the moderate CDA, “are rarely ever cited”, despite the fact that the user’s input exactly matches the stances of these political entities, the report indicated.
Official Warns Against Using AI Chatbots for Voting Guidance
The deputy head of the data protection agency, Monique Verdier, stated that while chatbots may seem like clever tools, “as a voting aid, they consistently fail”. Citizens were being steered toward a party that did not necessarily align with their ideological beliefs, she added.
“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the honesty of open and just votes,” Verdier stated. “We thus caution against employing AI assistants for voting advice, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”
Election Context and Political Landscape
The Dutch head to the polls on October 29 in an election that will be keenly observed around Europe for the showing of the PVV.
The right-leaning group of Wilders is ahead in surveys but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties appears to be narrowing, with numerous electors still undecided.
Every significant political faction have rejected a coalition with the Freedom party, implying the party that comes second is most likely to provide the next prime minister.
Inadvertent Prejudice Attributed to AI Operation
The AP stressed that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “identified shortcomings” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.
