AI assistants have been shown to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when offering voting advice, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has stated, issuing warnings about a potential threat to democracy just over a week before national elections.
Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in AI Suggestions
The quartet of AI assistants tested by the AP “often end up with the same two parties”, regardless of the user’s question or command, the watchdog noted in a report released ahead of the 29 October election.
In more than half of the cases, the chatbot suggested either the right-wing PVV of the politician Geert Wilders or the progressive GroenLinks-PvdA headed by the former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans.
Some parties, such as the centre-right CDA, “are almost never mentioned”, despite the fact that the voter’s query exactly matches the positions of these political entities, the study indicated.
Authority Figure Cautions Against Using AI Chatbots for Voting Guidance
The deputy head of the data protection agency, Monique Verdier, commented that while chatbots may seem like clever tools, “as a voting aid, they consistently fail”. Voters were being pushed toward a party that might not correspond to their political views, she emphasized.
“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections,” Verdier stated. “We therefore warn against employing AI assistants for election recommendations, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”
Voting Background and Political Landscape
The Dutch head to the polls on October 29 in an electoral contest that will be closely watched around Europe 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 appears to be narrowing, with many voters yet to make up their minds.
All major parties have rejected a coalition with the Freedom party, implying the runner-up party is most likely to provide the next prime minister.
Inadvertent Prejudice Attributed to AI Operation
The authority stressed that the AI systems were not intentionally prejudiced, and that their “noted flaws” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.
