How Microsoft’s AI chatbot ‘hallucinates’ election information

The upcoming year will be a busy one for democracy. Major elections will take place in the US, the EU, and Taiwan, among others. Just as the rollout of generative AI era is gathering pace in earnest — something some fear could prove detrimental to the democratic process.

One of the main concerns about generative AI is that it could be used for the malicious spread of disinformation, or that models can make up false statements presenting them as fact, so-called hallucinations. A study from two European NGOs has found that Microsoft’s chatbot — Bing AI (running on OpenAI’s GPT-4) — gave incorrect answers to one third of questions about elections in Germany and Switzerland. 

The study was conducted by Algorithm Watch and AI Forensics. The organisations said they prompted the chatbot with questions relating to candidates, polling and voting information, as well as more open recommendation requests on who to vote for when concerned with specific subjects, such as the environment. 

“Our research shows that malicious actors are not the only source of misinformation; general-purpose chatbots can be just as threatening to the information ecosystem,” commented Salvatore Romano, Senior Researcher at AI Forensics. “Microsoft should acknowledge this, and recognize that flagging the generative AI content made by others is not enough. Their tools, even when implicating trustworthy sources, produce incorrect information at scale.”

Microsoft’s chatbot attributed false information to sources

According to the study errors included “wrong election dates, outdated candidates, or even invented controversies concerning candidates.” Moreover, the incorrect information was often attributed to a source that had the correct information on the topic. It also made up “stories about candidates being involved in scandalous behaviour,” also attributing the information to reputable sources.