AI assistants have been shown to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when offering voting advice, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has reported, raising alarms about a possible risk to democracy just eight days before national elections.
Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in Chatbot Recommendations
The four chatbots tested by the AP “frequently recommend identical two parties”, irrespective of the user’s question or command, the regulator explained 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 Geert Wilders or the leftwing GroenLinks-PvdA led 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 precisely aligns with the positions of these political entities, the report pointed out.
Authority Figure Cautions Against Using AI Chatbots for Election Advice
The vice-chair of the AP, Monique Verdier, commented that while chatbots may seem like clever tools, “as a voting aid, they consistently fail”. Citizens were being steered toward a party that might not correspond to their ideological beliefs, she emphasized.
“This directly impacts a fundamental pillar of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections,” said Verdier. “We thus caution against employing AI assistants for voting advice, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”
Voting Background and Party Dynamics
Netherlands citizens vote on 29 October in an electoral contest that will be closely watched across the continent for the showing of the Freedom party.
The right-leaning group of Wilders is leading the polls but the gap to the GroenLinks-PvdA and CDA seems to be closing, with many voters still undecided.
All major parties have rejected a coalition with the PVV, meaning the runner-up party is most likely to supply the future head of government.
Inadvertent Prejudice Linked to Chatbot Functioning
The authority stressed that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “identified shortcomings” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.
