AI assistants are proving to be “unreliable and clearly biased” when providing election recommendations, the Netherlands’ data watchdog has reported, raising alarms about a potential threat to democracy just over a week before the country’s general election.
Testing Reveals Repeated Partiality in Chatbot Recommendations
The four chatbots tested by the AP “frequently recommend identical two parties”, regardless of the user’s question or command, the watchdog noted in a report published ahead of the late October vote.
In more than half of the cases, the chatbot suggested 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 user’s input precisely aligns with the positions of these political entities, the report pointed out.
Official Warns Against Using AI Chatbots for Voting Guidance
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 political group that did not necessarily align with their ideological beliefs, she added.
“This immediately affects a cornerstone of democracy: the honesty of open and just votes,” Verdier stated. “We thus caution against employing AI assistants for voting advice, as their functioning is opaque and hard to confirm.”
Voting Background and Party Dynamics
Netherlands citizens vote on 29 October in an election that will be keenly observed around Europe for the showing of the PVV.
The far-right party of Wilders is leading the polls but the gap to the left-wing and centre-right parties seems to be closing, with numerous electors yet to make up their minds.
Every significant political faction have rejected a coalition with the Freedom party, meaning the party that comes second is most likely 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 “noted flaws” are a consequence of the manner in which AI assistants function.
