AI assistants are proving to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when offering voting advice, the Netherlands’ data watchdog has reported, raising alarms about a possible risk to democratic processes just eight days before national elections.
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 voter’s inquiry or input, the watchdog noted in a report published ahead of the 29 October election.
In more than half of the cases, the chatbot suggested either the far-right Freedom party (PVV) of the politician Geert Wilders or the leftwing GroenLinks-PvdA headed by the ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
Certain groups, such as the moderate CDA, “are almost never mentioned”, even when the voter’s query precisely aligns with the positions of these political entities, the study indicated.
Authority Figure Cautions Against Relying on AI Assistants for Voting Guidance
The vice-chair of the data protection agency, Monique Verdier, stated that while AI assistants appear to be smart resources, “as a voting aid, they consistently fail”. 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 honesty of open and just votes,” Verdier stated. “We thus caution against using AI chatbots for voting advice, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”
Voting Background and Party Dynamics
Netherlands citizens vote on October 29 in an electoral contest that will be closely watched across the continent for the performance of the Freedom party.
The far-right party of Wilders is leading the polls but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties seems to be closing, with numerous electors yet to make up their minds.
Every significant political faction have rejected a coalition with the PVV, meaning the runner-up party is highly probable to supply the future head of government.
Unintentional Bias Attributed to Chatbot Functioning
The AP emphasised that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “noted flaws” are a consequence of the way AI chatbots operate.
