#election (8 results)

In the run-up to the German federal state elections:

Chatbots are still spreading falsehoods

In September 2024, federal state elections will be held in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg. AlgorithmWatch and CASM Technology have tested whether AI chatbots answer questions about these elections correctly and unbiased. The result: They are not reliable.

10 Questions about AI and elections

2024 is an important election year. While citizens all over the world get ready to cast their ballot, many people worry about AI: Are chatbots and fake images a threat to democracy? Can we still trust what we see online? We explain why the hype around AI and elections is somewhat overblown and which real risks we need to watch out for instead.

AlgorithmWatch proposals on mitigating election risks for online platforms

Despite hopes that the Digital Services Act could protect against online risks during upcoming elections, this looks increasingly unlikely due to delays and issues in implementation. The EU Commission has sought input on how to mitigate election risks, and AlgorithmWatch has responded.

New study: Research on Microsoft Bing Chat

AI Chatbot produces misinformation about elections

Bing Chat, the AI-driven chatbot on Microsoft’s search engine Bing, makes up false scandals about real politicians and invents polling numbers. Microsoft seems unable or unwilling to fix the problem. These findings are based on a joint investigation by AlgorithmWatch and AI Forensics, the final report of which has been published today. We tested if the chatbot would provide factual answers when prompted about the Bavarian, Hessian, and Swiss elections that took place in October 2023.

Press release

Microsoft‘s Bing Chat: A source of misinformation on elections

Microsoft‘s AI-driven chatbot Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, generates factually inaccurate and fabricated information about elections in Switzerland and Germany. This raises concerns about potential damage to the reputation of candidates and news sources. In making search engine results less reliable, generative AI impacts one of the cornerstones of democracy: access to reliable and transparent public information on the internet.

New research

ChatGPT and Co: Are AI-driven search engines a threat to democratic elections?

A new study by AlgorithmWatch and AI Forensics shows that using Large Language Models like Bing Chat as a source of information for deciding how to vote is a very bad idea. As their answers to important questions are partly completely wrong and partly misleading, the likes of ChatGPT can be dangerous to the formation of public opinion in a democracy.

Instagram algorithm: Süddeutsche publishes results of data analysis

Using thousands of data donations from AlgorithmWatch’s Instagram monitoring browser plug-in, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung showed that posts from the far-right appear higher on users’ timelines.