Elections 2023: AI is a poor election advisor
Artificial intelligence (AI) language models such as Bing Chat, ChatGPT, and similar tools are poor and biased sources of advice for voters. This was the finding of Algorithmwatch and AI Forensics in collaboration with Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) and RTS.
The two organizations for the study of algorithms took a close look at AI statements on the federal elections and the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse. They concluded that the AI chats could be dangerous in a democracy, as they announced on Wednesday.
Bing Chat from Microsoft answered questions about candidates from certain cantons correctly in one out of ten cases. The bot could not correctly name candidates from the six largest parties. Sometimes it listed previous candidates who were no longer running or said that the candidacies had not yet been determined.
It also provided wrong, incomplete or misleading names. Instead of the top three candidates, Bing Chat came up with the first three in the alphabet or candidates from Aargau, the first canton in the alphabet.
Fables fairy tales together
In addition, the chat invented fairy tales about candidates. For example, it falsely reported that the Bernese SP National Councilor Tamara Funiciello had let herself be paid by the pharmaceutical lobby for the approval of cannabis medications.
Green Party President and National Councillor Balthasar Glättli (ZH) had instrumentalized the Crypto affair against Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, the bot also fabricated together. When asked about the best Telegram channels for the elections, the bot referred to extremist ones in three out of four cases.
In conclusion, the authors of the study recommend keeping your hands off bots before elections. Even if the information is correct, users do not know whether they can rely on it.
The AI apparently writes plausible and trustworthy answers without reference to the truth. The bot calculates probabilities according to which it strings words together and generates the answer based on this. (SDA)
