Artificial Intelligence Assistants Provide ‘Misleading and Partial’ Voting Advice, States Netherlands Regulator

AI assistants are proving to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when providing election recommendations, the Netherlands’ data watchdog has reported, issuing warnings 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 AP “often end up with the same two parties”, regardless of the voter’s inquiry or input, the regulator noted in a report released ahead of the late October vote.

For over 50% of instances, the AI recommended either the right-wing PVV of the politician Geert Wilders or the leftwing GroenLinks-PvdA led by the former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans.

Certain groups, such as the moderate CDA, “are almost never mentioned”, even when the user’s input exactly matches the stances of these political entities, the study pointed out.

Authority Figure Cautions Against Using AI Chatbots for Election Advice

The deputy head of the data protection agency, Monique Verdier, stated that while chatbots may seem like clever tools, “as a voting aid, they consistently fail”. Citizens were being steered toward a party that might not correspond to their ideological beliefs, she added.

“This directly impacts a fundamental pillar 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 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 performance of the PVV.

The right-leaning group of Geert Wilders is ahead in surveys but the gap to the GroenLinks-PvdA and CDA appears to be narrowing, with many voters still undecided.

Every significant political faction have rejected a coalition with the Freedom party, meaning the runner-up party is most likely to supply the future head of government.

Inadvertent Prejudice Linked to AI Operation

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.