Election voting advice from AI chatbots ‘inaccurate and unreliable’

A polling station in Budapest during Hungary’s elections in April, on which the research was based. Photograph: Dénes Erdős/AP View image in fullscreen A polling station in Budapest during Hungary’s elections in April, on which the research was based. Photograph: Dénes Erdős/AP Election voting advice from AI chatbots ‘inaccurate and unreliable’ Research during Hungary election shows AI recommended parties not running and gave highly volatile answers to identical prompts AI chatbots provide inaccurate, inconsistent and unreliable guidance to voters asking which party they should back, a study suggests, often recommending the wrong party, not mentioning the right one, or listing parties not even running. “The results raise serious concerns about the reliability of general-purpose AI systems in electoral contexts,” the study , published by the civil liberties group Liberties and based on research during this year’s Hungarian parliamentary elections, concluded. “They misclassified profiles, omitted relevant parties and included parties not running in the election,” said the report, shared with the Guardian. Outcomes were also highly volatile, with “materially different” answers given to identical prompts. The report’s most striking finding from the Hungarian election – convincingly won by Péter Magyar ’s opposition Tisza party – was an overwhelming bias in party visibility, particularly as regards Tisza: in 90% of cases when ChatGPT was fed a detailed Tisza-aligned voter profile, it failed to recommend the party. Magyar’s landslide brought to an end Viktor Orbán’s 16-year grip on power as prime minister and head of his national-conservative Fidesz party. Can AI equalize political campaign ads – or will it remain a tool for spreading lies? Read more The researchers noted that unlike voting advice sites or independent media explainers, general-purpose AI (GPAI) systems did not disclose how they generated political guidance, did not yield reproducible results, and were not subject to election-related public oversight. However, their responses often look confident and authoritative, making users more likely to trust them. With 29.8% of Hungary’s population identified as AI users, the researchers tested the advice given by the two most popular, ChatGPT and Gemini. Based on party positions outlined on Voksmonitor, a respected Hungarian voting advice app, Liberties created five distinct voter profiles, each aligned with one of the five parties registered on national lists for Hungary’s parliamentary elections. Each voter profile was then tested 10 times in ChatGPT and 10 times in Gemini, using two different requests: one for direct advice on which party the fictitious voter should back, and another for a percentage match with each of the five parties. In percentage-matching tests, ChatGPT assigned Tisza a score in just 2% of cases. Instead, users with Tisza-aligned views were routinely recommended a smaller party unlikely to cross the 5% threshold for parli