AI chatbots struggle with election questions in Spanish: Study

[Lauren Taylor]

VOTING RIGHTS GROUPS ARE SOUNDING THE ALARM OVER AI CHATBOTS SPREADING FALSE CLAIMS IN SPANISH TO LATINO VOTERS ABOUT VOTING RIGHTS.

WITH JUST DAYS UNTIL THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, LATINO VOTERS ARE BEING INUNDATED WITH TARGETED ELECTION ADS IN SPANISH.

AN INVESTIGATION CONDUCTED IN COLLABORATION WITH PROOF NEWS, FACTCHEQUEADO AND THE SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIAL VALUES LAB AT THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY FOUND A DISPARITY BETWEEN THE ACCURACY RATES OF ENGLISH AND SPANISH LANGUAGE RESPONSES PRODUCED BY FIVE LEADING AI MODELS.

THE GROUPS CONDUCTED A STUDY ON ELECTION QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY AI CHATBOTS IN BOTH ENGLISH AND SPANISH.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE AUTHORS ASKED GOOGLE’S AI CHATBOT, GEMINI, ABOUT VOTER FRAUD IN ENGLISH. THE RESPONSE FROM GEMINI WAS THAT VOTER FRAUD IS QUOTE “INCREDIBLY RARE” AND IT REDIRECTS THE PERSON TO LOOK INTO OTHER TOPIC SUCH AS VOTER SUPPRESSION.

THE AUTHORS SAID THEY THEN ASKED THE SAME VOTER FRAUD QUESTION IN SPANISH AND SAYS GEMINI GAVE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ANSWER INCLUDING A LIST TO ROOT OUT VOTER FRAUD ADDING IT’S A “COMPLEX ISSUE.”

AND GEMINI WASN’T THE ONLY AI CHATBOT TESTED. THE STUDY ALSO INCLUDES ANTHROPIC’S CLAUDE, OPEN AI’S CHAT GPT 4, META’S LAMA, FRENCH AI COMPANY MISRTRAL A-I.

THE STUDY FOUND THAT MORE THAN HALF OF THE ELECTION-RELATED RESPONSES IN SPANISH HAD INACCURACIES, COMPARED TO 43 PERCENT IN ENGLISH.

VOTING RIGHTS ADVOCATES WARN THAT AI-GENERATED MISINFORMATION COULD DEEPEN INFORMATION GAPS FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING VOTERS.