Artificial Intelligence Assistants Provide ‘Unreliable and Biased’ Voting Advice, States Netherlands Regulator

AI assistants are proving 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 democracy just eight days before national elections.

Testing Reveals Consistent Bias in Chatbot Recommendations

The quartet of AI assistants evaluated by the AP “often end up with the same two parties”, regardless of the voter’s inquiry or input, the watchdog noted in a report released ahead of the late October vote.

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 headed by the ex-EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.

Certain groups, such as the moderate CDA, “are almost never mentioned”, despite the fact that the user’s input precisely aligns with the positions of these parties, the study pointed out.

Authority Figure Cautions Against Using AI Chatbots for Voting Guidance

The deputy head of the AP, Monique Verdier, commented that while chatbots may seem like clever tools, “for election guidance, they repeatedly fall short”. Citizens were being steered toward a party that did not necessarily align with their ideological beliefs, she added.

“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the honesty of open and just votes,” said Verdier. “We therefore warn against using AI chatbots for voting advice, as their functioning is opaque and difficult to verify.”

Voting Background and Political Landscape

The Dutch head to the polls on 29 October in an election that will be closely watched across the continent for the showing of the Freedom party.

The far-right party of Geert Wilders is leading the polls but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties seems to be closing, with numerous electors still undecided.

All major parties have ruled out an alliance with the PVV, implying the party that comes second is most likely to supply the future head of government.

Inadvertent Prejudice Attributed to Chatbot Functioning

The authority emphasised that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “identified shortcomings” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.