AI chatbots are proving to be “inaccurate and evidently prejudiced” when offering voting advice, the Netherlands’ data watchdog has stated, issuing warnings about a possible risk to democracy just eight days before the country’s general election.
Testing Reveals Consistent Bias in Chatbot Recommendations
The four chatbots evaluated by the authority “frequently recommend identical two parties”, regardless of the user’s question or command, the watchdog noted in a analysis published 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 leftwing GroenLinks-PvdA led by the former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans.
Certain groups, such as the moderate CDA, “are rarely ever cited”, even when the voter’s query precisely aligns with the stances of these political entities, the report indicated.
Authority Figure Cautions Against Relying on AI Assistants for Voting Guidance
The deputy head of the data protection agency, the official Monique Verdier, commented 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 therefore warn against employing AI assistants for voting advice, as their functioning is opaque and difficult to verify.”
Election Context and Party Dynamics
Netherlands citizens vote on 29 October in an election that will be closely watched around Europe for the showing of the Freedom party.
The far-right party of Geert Wilders is ahead in surveys but the lead over the left-wing and centre-right parties seems to be closing, with many voters still undecided.
All major parties have rejected a coalition with the PVV, meaning the party that comes second is highly probable to provide the next prime minister.
Inadvertent Prejudice Linked to Chatbot Functioning
The AP stressed that the bots were not deliberately biased, and that their “noted flaws” are a result of the way AI chatbots operate.
