Generative Ai And Elections Why You Should Worry More About Humans

Why claims about the impact of generative AI on elections have been overblown A project studying how advanced AI systems may harm, or help strengthen, democratic freedoms Prominent voices worry that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) will negatively impact elections worldwide and trigger a misinformation apocalypse. A recurrent fear is that GenAI will make it easier to influence voters and facilitate the creation and dissemination of potent mis- and disinformation. We argue that despite the incredible capabilities of GenAI systems, their influence on election outcomes has been overestimated. Looking back at 2024, the predicted outsized effects of GenAI did not happen and were overshadowed by traditional sources of influence.

We review current evidence on the impact of GenAI in the 2024 elections and identify several reasons why the impact of GenAI on elections has been overblown. These include the inherent challenges of mass persuasion, the complexity of media effects and people’s interaction with technology, the difficulty of reaching target audiences, and the limited effectiveness of AI-driven microtargeting in political campaigns. Additionally, we argue that the socioeconomic, cultural, and personal factors that shape voting behavior outweigh the influence of AI-generated content. We further analyze the bifurcated discourse on GenAI’s role in elections, framing it as part of the ongoing “cycle of technology panics.” While acknowledging AI’s risks, such as amplifying social inequalities, we argue that... The paper calls for a recalibration of the narratives around AI and elections, proposing a nuanced approach that considers AI within broader sociopolitical contexts. The increasing public availability of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and a slew of others has led to a resurgence of concerns about the impact of AI and...

Leading voices from politics, business, and the media twice listed “adverse outcomes of AI technologies” as having a potentially severe impact in the next two years (together with “mis- and disinformation”) in the World... The public is worried as well. A recent survey of eight countries, including Brazil, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. found that 84 percent of people were concerned about the use of AI to create fake content (Ejaz et al., 2024). Meanwhile, a large survey of AI researchers found that 86 percent were significantly or extremely concerned about AI and the spread of false information, and 79 percent about manipulation of large-scale public opinion trends... The main worry present in all these contexts is that AI will make it easier to create and target potent mis- and disinformation and propaganda and manipulate voters more effectively.

The integration of foundation models, particularly AI chatbots, into various digital media and their growing use for online searches, interaction with information and news, and use as personal assistants is also a growing concern,... A recurrent theme is the impact of AI on national elections. Initial predictions warned that GenAI would propel the world toward a “tech-enabled Armageddon” (Scott, 2023), where “elections get screwed up” (Verma & Zakrzewski, 2024), and that “anybody who’s not worried [was] not paying attention”... We critically examine these claims against the backdrop of the 2023-2024 global election cycle, during which nearly half of the world’s population had the opportunity to participate in elections, including in high-stakes contests in... and Brazil. There is great public concern about the potential use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for political persuasion and the resulting impacts on elections and democracy1,2,3,4,5,6.

We inform these concerns using pre-registered experiments to assess the ability of large language models to influence voter attitudes. In the context of the 2024 US presidential election, the 2025 Canadian federal election and the 2025 Polish presidential election, we assigned participants randomly to have a conversation with an AI model that advocated... We observed significant treatment effects on candidate preference that are larger than typically observed from traditional video advertisements7,8,9. We also document large persuasion effects on Massachusetts residents’ support for a ballot measure legalizing psychedelics. Examining the persuasion strategies9 used by the models indicates that they persuade with relevant facts and evidence, rather than using sophisticated psychological persuasion techniques. Not all facts and evidence presented, however, were accurate; across all three countries, the AI models advocating for candidates on the political right made more inaccurate claims.

Together, these findings highlight the potential for AI to influence voters and the important role it might play in future elections. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription Receive 51 print issues and online access AI Chatbots Are Shockingly Good at Political Persuasion

Chatbots can measurably sway voters’ choices, new research shows. The findings raise urgent questions about AI’s role in future elections By Deni Ellis Béchard edited by Claire Cameron Stickers sit on a table during in-person absentee voting on November 01, 2024 in Little Chute, Wisconsin. Election day is Tuesday November 5. Forget door knocks and phone banks—chatbots could be the future of persuasive political campaigns.

The Brookings Institution, Washington District of Columbia Melanie W. Sisson, Colin Kahl, Sun Chenghao, Xiao Qian AI is eminently capable of political persuasion and could automate it at a mass scale. We are not prepared. In January 2024, the phone rang in homes all around New Hampshire.

On the other end was Joe Biden’s voice, urging Democrats to “save your vote” by skipping the primary. It sounded authentic, but it wasn’t. The call was a fake, generated by artificial intelligence. Today, the technology behind that hoax looks quaint. Tools like OpenAI’s Sora now make it possible to create convincing synthetic videos with astonishing ease. AI can be used to fabricate messages from politicians and celebrities—even entire news clips—in minutes.

The fear that elections could be overwhelmed by realistic fake media has gone mainstream—and for good reason. But that’s only half the story. The deeper threat isn’t that AI can just imitate people—it’s that it can actively persuade people. And new research published this week shows just how powerful that persuasion can be. In two large peer-reviewed studies, AI chatbots shifted voters’ views by a substantial margin, far more than traditional political advertising tends to do. In the coming years, we will see the rise of AI that can personalize arguments, test what works, and quietly reshape political views at scale.

That shift—from imitation to active persuasion—should worry us deeply. Voters change their opinions after interacting with an AI chatbot – but, encouragingly, it seems that AIs rely on facts to influence people AI chatbots may have the power to influence voters’ opinions Does the persuasive power of AI chatbots spell the beginning of the end for democracy? In one of the largest surveys to date exploring how these tools can influence voter attitudes, AI chatbots were more persuasive than traditional political campaign tools including advertisements and pamphlets, and as persuasive as... But at least some researchers identify reasons for optimism in the way in which the AI tools shifted opinions.

We have already seen that AI chatbots like ChatGPT can be highly convincing, persuading conspiracy theorists that their beliefs are incorrect and winning more support for a viewpoint when pitted against human debaters. This persuasive power has naturally led to fears that AI could place its digital thumb on the scale in consequential elections, or that bad actors could marshal these chatbots to steer users towards their... The bad news is that these fears may not be totally baseless. In a study of thousands of voters taking part in recent US, Canadian and Polish presidential elections, David Rand at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues found that AI chatbots were surprisingly... The rise of generative artificial intelligence in political messaging is creating new concerns about the future of elections, as research reveals that AI-powered chatbots are capable of subtly, and sometimes significantly, shifting voter attitudes. Conversations with AI chatbots during live election periods in the U.S., Canada and Poland led to measurable changes in political preferences among voters, according to new research published in Nature.

The findings arrive amid growing concern from both researchers and policymakers that the persuasive capabilities of AI could be used to influence or even manipulate outcomes in national elections without public awareness. In a series of experiments carried out by Cornell University's professor David Rand and colleagues, AI chatbots were programmed to advocate for specific political candidates in the 2024 U.S. presidential election and the 2025 national elections in Canada and Poland. The researchers found that chatbot interactions could reinforce existing support—but more notably, they were often successful in persuading undecided or opposing voters too. For the U.S. study, 2,306 participants indicated their preferred candidate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Each person was randomly assigned a chatbot advocating for either candidate. Even brief conversations led to statistically significant shifts in candidate support.

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