AI assistants are proving to be “unreliable and clearly biased” when offering voting advice, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has reported, raising alarms about a potential threat to democracy just over a week before the country’s general election.
Testing Reveals Consistent Bias in Chatbot Recommendations
The quartet of AI assistants evaluated by the authority “often end up with the same two parties”, regardless of the voter’s inquiry or input, the watchdog noted in a analysis released ahead of the 29 October election.
In more than half of the cases, the AI recommended either the right-wing PVV of the politician Geert Wilders or the progressive GroenLinks-PvdA headed by the ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
Certain groups, such as the moderate CDA, “are rarely ever cited”, despite the fact that the user’s input exactly matches the positions of these political entities, the study pointed out.
Authority Figure Cautions Against Relying on AI Assistants for Election Advice
The vice-chair of the data protection agency, the official 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 did not necessarily align with their ideological beliefs, she emphasized.
“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the honesty of open and just votes,” Verdier stated. “We thus caution against using AI chatbots for election recommendations, as their functioning is opaque and difficult to verify.”
Voting Background and Party Dynamics
The Dutch head to the polls on 29 October in an electoral contest that will be keenly observed around Europe for the performance of the Freedom party.
The right-leaning group of Geert Wilders is ahead in surveys but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties seems to be closing, with many voters 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 provide the next prime minister.
Inadvertent Prejudice Linked to Chatbot Functioning
The AP stressed that the AI systems were not intentionally prejudiced, and that their “noted flaws” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.
