AI assistants are proving to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when providing election recommendations, the Netherlands’ data watchdog has stated, raising alarms about a possible risk to democracy just over a week before the country’s general election.
Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in AI Suggestions
The four chatbots evaluated by the AP “frequently recommend identical two parties”, irrespective of the user’s question or command, the watchdog noted in a report released 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 headed by the ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
Some parties, such as the moderate CDA, “are almost never mentioned”, even when the voter’s query exactly matches the positions of these parties, the study indicated.
Official Warns Against Using AI Chatbots for Voting Guidance
The deputy head of the data protection agency, 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 political group that might not correspond to their ideological beliefs, she added.
“This immediately affects a cornerstone of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections,” Verdier stated. “We thus caution against employing AI assistants for election recommendations, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”
Election Context and Political Landscape
The Dutch head to the polls on October 29 in an electoral contest that will be keenly observed across the continent for the showing of the PVV.
The right-leaning group of Geert Wilders is ahead in surveys but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties appears to be narrowing, with numerous electors still undecided.
Every significant political faction have ruled out an alliance with the Freedom party, implying the runner-up party is highly probable to supply the future head of government.
Unintentional Bias Linked to Chatbot Functioning
The authority emphasised that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “identified shortcomings” are a consequence of the way AI chatbots operate.
