Artificial Intelligence Assistants Provide ‘Misleading and Partial’ Voting Advice, Claims Dutch Watchdog

AI assistants have been shown to be “unreliable and clearly biased” when providing election recommendations, the Dutch data protection authority (AP) has stated, raising alarms about a possible risk to democracy just over a week before national elections.

Study Shows Repeated Partiality in Chatbot Recommendations

The quartet of AI assistants evaluated by the AP “often end up with the same two parties”, irrespective 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 far-right Freedom party (PVV) of Geert Wilders or the progressive GroenLinks-PvdA led by the former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans.

Certain groups, such as the centre-right CDA, “are almost never mentioned”, despite the fact that the voter’s query exactly matches the stances of these parties, the study pointed out.

Official Warns Against Using AI Chatbots for Voting Guidance

The vice-chair 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 emphasized.

“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the honesty of open and just votes,” said Verdier. “We thus caution against employing AI assistants for election recommendations, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”

Election Context and Party Dynamics

The Dutch head to the polls on 29 October 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 ahead in surveys but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties appears to be narrowing, with many voters still undecided.

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 emphasised that the AI systems were not intentionally prejudiced, and that their “identified shortcomings” are a consequence of the way AI chatbots operate.