Artificial Intelligence Assistants Deliver ‘Unreliable and Biased’ Voting Advice, States Dutch Watchdog

AI assistants have been shown to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when offering voting advice, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has reported, issuing warnings about a potential threat to democratic processes just over a week before the country’s general election.

Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in Chatbot Recommendations

The four chatbots evaluated by the authority “often end up with the same two parties”, irrespective of the user’s question or command, the regulator explained in a analysis published ahead of the late October vote.

In more than half of the cases, the AI recommended either the far-right Freedom party (PVV) of the politician Geert Wilders or the progressive GroenLinks-PvdA led by the former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans.

Some parties, such as the centre-right CDA, “are rarely ever cited”, despite the fact that the voter’s query exactly matches the stances of these parties, the report indicated.

Official Warns Against Relying on AI Assistants for Election Advice

The deputy head of the AP, the official Monique Verdier, stated 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 added.

“This directly impacts a fundamental pillar 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 difficult to verify.”

Voting Background and Political Landscape

Netherlands citizens vote on 29 October in an election that will be keenly observed across the continent for the showing of the PVV.

The right-leaning group of Wilders is leading the polls but the gap to the GroenLinks-PvdA and CDA seems to be closing, with numerous electors yet to make up their minds.

Every significant political faction have ruled out an alliance with the PVV, implying the party that comes second is most likely to provide the next prime minister.

Unintentional Bias Linked to Chatbot Functioning

The AP stressed that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “noted flaws” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.