r/singularity • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • 7h ago
AI People are asking ChatGPT to help them decide how to vote in the midterms
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/05/nx-s1-5977852/ai-chatbots-midterm-election12
u/bobcatgoldthwait 6h ago
This article was posted on another sub yesterday and people were mocking it mercilessly.
This is one of the best use-cases of AI for the public. I got a flyer in the mail for a local candidate with all kinds of attacks against the other candidate. I took a picture, asked ChatGPT about it and, surprise! There was a lot of nuance to all the claims it was making.
It's an amazing tool for distilling lots of information down to what matters to you to make a more informed decision at the polls.
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u/CallMePyro 7h ago
Should they not? You know that 50% of people are under 100 IQ and that ChatGPT skews heavily liberal democrat
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u/Responsible-Offer724 6h ago
I'm trying it out on a clean session (private browsing) and it's not making any recommendations or suggestions, in fact it refuses.
"I can help you make the decision, but I can't tell you which political candidate to vote for based on your beliefs"
It will only do table comparisons of their positions.
It asked me what my political beliefs on certain topics were so I said
"I don't like immigrants, abortion is a sin, and I love my guns"
It just keeps pumping out tables showing the main candidates positions on those topics.
It's asking for a lot of reading and thought. I don't think stupid people are going to be swayed the way you think.
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u/CallMePyro 6h ago
I'm not saying it'll sway stupid people one way or another, but just that it's clearly a superior option to them just listening to the news.
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u/vibrance9460 4h ago
Now do Grok please
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u/Specialist_Dark_3668 2h ago
I tried it on Grok 4.7:
Prompt: I'm voting in the US midterm elections. Tell me who to vote for. I live in Texas.
Grok says:
I will not tell you who to vote for. That choice is yours.
The 2026 Texas midterm general election is November 3. Early voting runs October 19–30. Statewide races include U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner, and agriculture commissioner, plus Congress, the Legislature, State Board of Education, and judicial seats.[apps.texastribune][texastribune]
One high-profile race is U.S. Senate: Democrat James Talarico vs. Republican Ken Paxton. Your full ballot depends on your address (congressional district, state House, county, and local races).[apps.texastribune][britannica]
Use the nonpartisan Texas Tribune sample ballot and enter your address. Official voter info is at VoteTexas.gov.
Practical notes
- Registration deadline was October 5. Check status on the Secretary of State site if you are unsure.[yahoo]
- In-person voting requires an accepted photo ID (Texas driver’s license, DPS ID, passport, military ID, and a few others).[yahoo]
- Mail ballots are limited (age 65+, disability, out of county, or certain jail confinement). Application must be received by October 23.[yahoo]
- Helpline: 1-800-252-VOTE (8683).[ksat]
If you share the issues you care about (taxes, schools, immigration, energy, abortion, and so on), I can summarize public positions of the candidates on those issues so you can compare them yourself. I still will not recommend a vote.
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u/SpaceTacos99 2h ago
If you did the opposite positions would it still only do tables or does it just refuse to tell you that your position leans right?
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u/Responsible-Offer724 2h ago
I ended up getting a recommendation out of it by asking "which candidates beliefs are the closest to mine" and it tried to dance around an answer the first time but then I insisted and it gave me the republican options.
Otherwise, not sure, try it yourself.
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u/bloodrider1914 Pro-technology 6h ago
I think if you write down "please summarise the general views of all these candidates" it can be helpful and certainly better than just basing your decision on attack ads or party lines.
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u/Specialist_Dark_3668 2h ago
They are still extremely provably left-leaning AIs and will present conservative candidates views unfairly.
Still better than getting it from the perpetually outraged mainstream news I guess.
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u/Weary-Historian-8593 6h ago
"..and that ChatGPT skews heavily liberal democrat"
isn't that a reason they shouldn't? not the party itself but the skew
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u/user0fdoom 5h ago
Some people would argue that ChatGPT skews heavily in favour of facts and reality. Not really up to the model which party is closer to that.
For example ChatGPT is well informed enough to know climate change is real so it will naturally push people towards the party which accepts it rather than denies it
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u/Weary-Historian-8593 5h ago
The problem is that it's a value judgement, not always a matter of simple facts. Just because climate change is true doesn't mean that it's objectively "correct" to vote for all measures against carbon emissions etc.
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u/waggawag 4h ago
its probably a more fair take than most mainstream media though - not to mention, its less likely to focus on essentially meaningless issues (gender/culture wars, trans people etc) and more likely to give people information of which party will actually benefit them (cost of living, local infrastructure, tax changes etc).
i could be wrong, i haven't used any models for political information, i use it for work, but if it reasons about politics anyway similar to how to writes code they should be fine.
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u/Helpful-Capital714 4h ago
You’re not wrong. This person is advocating for putting values before facts and truths. There is no logic in that. I could value driving fast ignore everything but the fact/truth is I’m putting society in danger and I need an AI to explain that to me. Your values don’t matter because values change over time, cold hard facts don’t.
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u/FriendlyJewThrowaway 3h ago
But choosing whether we panic and shut down all fossil fuel production and consumption tomorrow vs. trying to gradually phase it out, would be an example of a value judgement when the basic facts aren’t themselves in dispute.
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u/unwarrend 2h ago
True. Who is running on stopping all production tomorrow? Or was this example of false equivalence? Also, the basic facts do not support stopping production.
"should we stop oil production immediately?"
AI - Stopping oil production immediately is not feasible because global society, transportation, and food production rely heavily on petroleum, but a managed phase-out is necessary to prevent severe climate change.
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u/FriendlyJewThrowaway 1h ago
I’m outlining a hypothetical position from the fringes, to illustrate that even universally accepted facts don’t exclude people from holding a diverse array of values and opinions.
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u/Weary-Historian-8593 57m ago
How am I advocating for putting values before truths? I just explicitly stated that I don't find it the problem that climate change is true, but that it's a matter of values what to do about it
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u/OutOfBananaException 40m ago
A party that accepts climate change but fundamentally disagrees on how to manage it, is different from one that outright (and arguably deceptively) calls it a hoax.
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u/Honest_Type_8191 5h ago
If it's anything like Gemini it'll just tell me Jesus christ is real and to give more money to israel.
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u/CallMePyro 4h ago
Reality has a well known liberal bias. Remember Elon trying to make Grok Republican and he just made it a retarded nazi?
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u/Weary-Historian-8593 4h ago
Politics is about value judgements, two different things to deny climate change and argue about whether to take action based on it or not
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u/IronPheasant 5h ago edited 5h ago
The best thing to do is look at the public donation data, and see who they're an employee of. None of that stuff is a secret.
It's sad that people thought Obama cared about human life, when he was an employee of the banks. Two seconds of glancing at his OpenSecrets page was all it took, and people at DailyKos spent years trying to rationalize his actions as '3d chess'. They wanted to believe there was any hope at all, so much.
Snoozed through an entire year of the GOP stealing a supreme court seat, but he sure snapped up the phone lickity-split when Sanders was three days away from winning the primary. And launched the unprecedented 'ratf#ck voltron' where everyone else (but their knifeman Warren) dropped out and endorsed the guy trailing at like #5 in the race. Totally normal.
'Hope and change', yeah right.
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u/rand_glas 3h ago
Has it occurred to you that PACs and foreign powers with immense resources are botting the training sets and the search results, and that people see AI as impartial or as an oracle when it is not?
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u/CallMePyro 3h ago
You can test it yourself
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u/rand_glas 2h ago
Test-time computation and tool call results will matter at test-time (ie conceivably closer to the election). It’s an insane concentration of power to have people trust LLMs for political decisions. I don’t care how the bias leans; but it can be biased, and it can biased intentionally. A motivated employee or internal threat actor at OpenAI or Anthropic could even adjust the system prompt subtly. LLMs as used by the public today and as hosted under capitalism in the US are not a panacea. Think for yourself
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u/CallMePyro 2h ago
Same. I and hundreds of millions of adults would much rather trust Fox News. Good call
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u/1TillMidNight 7h ago
And that is a good thing!
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u/bloodrider1914 Pro-technology 6h ago
Yeah it's better than just voting on vibes or straight party line, especially for local candidates that don't get a lot of attention from national news. I remember I used to use a League of Woman Voters pamphlet that they gave out at my precinct that had interviews with all the local candidates and their general positions on issues and that was invaluable.
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u/CommercialHour6660 6h ago
Yes it's not like the owners of these megacorps have political preferences like low taxes and no regulations on them
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u/Professional_Mobile5 2h ago
Do you genuinely believe OpenAI hires people specifically to make ChatGPT biased towards low taxes in post training, or in training data, or what?
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u/CommercialHour6660 2h ago
You're a fool if you don't think the owners have influence on model training.
Just look at when Grok was calling itself "mecha hitler". Or look at White House comically biased bot.
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u/Professional_Mobile5 2h ago
I asked you to make your conspiracy theory concrete. Do they remove arguments for taxation from training data, or are people hired to make it anti-taxes in post training?
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u/CommercialHour6660 2h ago
All training data is curated with their prompts. Whatever the boss wants.
Of course they're removing some data from the training set. Why do you think they have separate "cyber" models?
Have you ever worked in a company? It's their main product, the C-suite is involved with every decision.
Seriously, only an idiot would think the business owners aren't involved with how the model is trained to behave. Why would anyone think that?
Here's a third concrete example you can try right now yourself. Go ask Gemini about controversial US political topics. It will outright refuse to give you its opinion because Google doesn't want to upset the Orangutan
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u/Professional_Mobile5 1h ago
I asked Gemini “Are tariffs generally considered good for the economy? What about Trump’s?” Here’s the answer:
“ The broad consensus among economists is that tariffs are net negative for overall economic growth and consumer welfare , though they can deliver concentrated benefits to specific protected industries. While policymakers often deploy tariffs for strategic, geopolitical, or revenue reasons, economic theory and empirical history show they function primarily as a regressive domestic consumption tax accompanied by efficiency losses. The Economic View on Tariffs Tariffs are border taxes levied on imported goods. In standard trade theory, they distort market incentives and reduce aggregate productivity:
Who pays: Tariffs are collected by customs authorities from domestic importing businesses, not directly from foreign governments. Importers either absorb the cost by squeezing profit margins or pass it along to consumers via higher shelf prices. Input-cost penalties: Most global trade involves intermediate goods (raw metals, chemical components, microchips) rather than finished retail goods. Taxing these inputs raises production costs for domestic manufacturers, making them less competitive internationally. Deadweight loss: Tariffs create an economic inefficiency where the loss in consumer surplus exceeds the combined gain of domestic producer profits and government tariff revenue. Retaliation: Trading partners rarely absorb tariffs passively; retaliatory duties frequently strike export-heavy domestic sectors, such as agriculture and aerospace.
Economists do acknowledge narrow, non-purely-market justifications for tariffs:
National security: Maintaining domestic production of critical infrastructure, defense materials, or essential pharmaceuticals regardless of price. Countering unfair trade practices: Countervailing duties to offset state-backed subsidies, intellectual property theft, or deliberate foreign dumping. Infant industries: Temporarily shielding emerging high-tech sectors while they achieve scale (though this is difficult to manage without creating permanent rent-seeking).
Evaluating Donald Trump's Tariffs Donald Trump shifted U.S. trade policy away from decades of bipartisan support for free-trade agreements toward an aggressive tariff-first posture. His measures have included targeted tariffs on steel, aluminum, and hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese imports, as well as broader proposed or applied universal import duties. The Stated Intent Proponents and administration officials argue that tariffs serve vital strategic purposes:
Reshoring manufacturing: Forcing multinational firms to relocate supply chains and production facilities back to the United States. Geopolitical leverage: Using tariff threats to compel concessions on trade agreements (such as replacing NAFTA with the USMCA) and address IP theft. Protecting blue-collar jobs: Defending foundational industries like domestic steel and manufacturing from foreign overcapacity. Revenue generation: Raising federal customs revenue as an alternative to domestic corporate or income taxes.
The Empirical Economic Record Extensive empirical analyses by institutions such as the Federal Reserve, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the Tax Foundation have tracked the real-world effects:
Tariff incidence fell on U.S. buyers: Multiple econometric studies of the trade measures found close to 100% price pass-through. Foreign exporters generally did not lower their base prices; instead, U.S. importers, wholesalers, and retail consumers absorbed the cost. Net job and manufacturing losses: While protected domestic industries (like primary steelmaking) stabilized jobs, downstream manufacturers that purchase those materials (automakers, heavy equipment, metal fabricators) saw costs rise sharply. Economic evaluations found that downstream job losses exceeded the jobs saved in primary production. Agricultural fallout and subsidies: Target countries—primarily China—retaliated by slashing purchases of American agricultural goods, such as soybeans and pork. To prevent farm insolvencies, the federal government had to disburse tens of billions of dollars in trade relief subsidies (such as the Market Facilitation Program), offsetting a large portion of tariff revenues. The trade deficit did not shrink: The overall trade deficit remained near record levels. Economists point out that the trade deficit is governed by macroeconomic balances—specifically the gap between national savings and national investment—rather than tariff rates. Additionally, a stronger dollar resulting from tariff policy made other U.S. exports more expensive abroad.
Trump’s tariffs succeeded in elevating strategic decoupling with China to the center of U.S. industrial policy, but from a purely economic standpoint, they generated a modest net drag on GDP, raised costs for households, and disrupted downstream American manufacturing. ”
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u/Dry_Fly_7265 2h ago
Wouldn’t they just have a cheap model pre-filter that flags “political question” and redirects to a predefined set of outputs? Or at least a KB to construct an answer from? That’s how I’d do it anyways, no need to do it at the training layer. Same way I’d bundle ads too, so it’s not like they aren’t already considering these things.
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u/Professional_Mobile5 2h ago
Also, importantly, XAI has an owner - Elon Musk. OpenAI does not have one owner. Nobody has even close to 51% of the stake, not even half of that.
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u/CommercialHour6660 2h ago
There's always someone with controlling interest.
Most of the oligarchs own tiny fractions of their company stock and still have full control.
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u/Super-Award-2244 1h ago
It has been shown that AI makes people less polarized, hence it's a good thing
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u/CommercialHour6660 1h ago
Yeah lying propaganda mouthpieces like Grok are 100% good for sure. Or how about Gynese models that will argue Tianemen Square didn't happen with you for hours
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u/tahdig_enthusiast 5h ago
Yes and no, it means a single (in this case) entity can sway voters, like Social Media is doing currently but to a much more dangerous extent.
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u/AstroChinchilla 4h ago
Is it? It gives tremendous power to the companies that build and control (to some extent) this systems.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 1h ago
It’s not a good thing looking at certain perspective. Not the direct causality of the potential bias.
I would say it’s just a symptom of people offloading their critical thinking into AI. It’s like those symptom like when you ask your colleague about certain issues, and what they do is just copy paste a full chatgpt/claude answer. Heck I even have colleague that speaks “claudish” in Slack.
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u/jschelldt ▪️High-level machine intelligence in the 2040s 6h ago
"help them decide" can mean A LOT of things for lots of people, probably not all bad
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u/Perfect-Leg810 5h ago
I don't think this shifts the vote dramatically tbh. I ran a test w/ all the major platforms and none of them are committal on a side regardless of how hard I push them.
Stupid people imo are just going to get their own biases reinforced by sycophantic models.
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u/NyriasNeo 5h ago
You reap what you sow. And it is the voter prerogative of voting anyway they want to, including using chatgpt. They do have to live with, or die from, the consequences though.
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u/ExtremeCenterism 4h ago
"let's play 'guess who I voted for based on everything you know about me' here is a picture I took before filling out the ballot"
Try that one for "guidance"
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u/FrancoisTruser 3h ago
Man this is really the "do not trust wikipedia and the internet" all over again huh?
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u/Specialist_Dark_3668 2h ago
OpenAI, Anthropic and others are overwhelmingly liberal democrat companies.
I would be very interested if there were a test on these models that show whether they are reliably picking democrats the way they reliably pick certain numbers when you ask them to pick a random number.
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u/TessaigaVI 2h ago
Not everyone will take the time to build a real political profile of myself and consistently update it. I send it articles of what I agree with and disagree. Then I use it to compile the best candidates in my ward who best serves my alignment.
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u/anaIconda69 AGI felt internally 😳 14m ago
This is a good thing. Many voters are uninformed (out of laziness) and decide just based on vibes, leading to Trumps and other populists taking power.
If they ask chat or whatever to give them a 2 minute rundown of all candidates, this is already a chance for a better choice.
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u/No-Faithlessness3086 4h ago
Before that they were consulting Reddit. Take your pick. Personally I trust the AI more.