Dutch privacy watchdog warns voters against asking AI how to vote

The Netherlands's data protection watchdog has cautioned citizens against consulting with artificial intelligence on how to vote, warning that popular chatbots provide a "highly distorted and polarised view" of politics. The Dutch Data Protection Authority said on Tuesday that an increasing number of voters were using AI to help decide who to vote for, despite the models offering "unreliable and clearly biased" advice. The research found that the chatbots more often recommended parties on the fringes of the political spectrum when asked to identify the three choices that best matched the policy preferences of 1,500 fictitious voter profiles. In more than half of cases, the AI models identified the hard-right Party for Freedom (PVV) or left-wing Green Left-Labour Party as the top choice, the watchdog said. Parties closer to the political middle ground - such as the right-leaning People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the centre-left Democrats 66 - were recommended much less often, according to the watchdog.