Algorithms Could Decide Poland's Election Outcome, Warns Digital Democracy Observatory

The Digital Democracy Observatory Foundation (Fundacja Obserwatorium Demokracji Cyfrowej) warns that the outcome of Poland's upcoming elections may be decided not by political parties but by artificial intelligence algorithms. In an interview with WNP.pl, the foundation's founder and president Jakub Szymik points out that chatbots can now tailor their responses to individual users, while Poland still lacks regulations governing their role in election campaigns.

What the Expert Warns

Szymik stresses that language models differ from traditional political advertising in that they can hold a personalized conversation tailored to a specific voter's beliefs and doubts. This sets them apart from a billboard or a TV spot, which reach everyone in the same form.

AI models can adapt to specific voters, specific conversations and specific user needs - Jakub Szymik, Digital Democracy Observatory Foundation

It may turn out that it won't be political parties but algorithms that decide who wins - Jakub Szymik, Digital Democracy Observatory Foundation

The Grok Example

As a concrete example of chatbots' susceptibility to political bias, Szymik cites the behavior of Grok, xAI's chatbot. The model reportedly stated outright that it would vote for Confederation, which, according to Szymik, shows that AI systems are not politically neutral even though they are presented as an objective source of information.

The foundation points out that the problem is not limited to text responses. Generative systems today allow huge volumes of content, including deepfakes and synthetic influencers, to be created in a very short time, making it harder to monitor campaigns in real time and respond quickly to disinformation.

Gaps in Polish Law

According to Szymik, Poland currently lacks sufficiently precise regulations requiring AI-generated content to be labeled or governing the activity of political influencers and the mass use of artificial intelligence in campaigns. Some of the proposed solutions rely on existing regulations, such as the EU AI Act or the Digital Services Act (DSA), but their application to the specifics of election campaigns still raises doubts.

The Senate is working on a bill that would give the National Electoral Commission (Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza, PKW) the power to impose fines of up to 6 percent of a platform's global annual turnover for violations related to political advertising and AI-generated content. Oversight would involve the PKW working together with UODO, UKE, UOKiK and KRRiT, Poland's data protection, telecommunications, competition and broadcasting regulators.

A Race Against the Calendar

Timing remains the key problem. Under current rules, new electoral regulations cannot be introduced within six months of a vote, meaning they would need to take effect well ahead of the 2027 elections in order to cover the campaign at all.

Szymik cites precedents from other countries as a warning of what can happen without adequate regulations. During the UK elections, chatbots hallucinated false information about candidates, and ahead of the 2025 European Parliament elections, deepfakes depicting Ursula von der Leyen and Joseph Stalin circulated online. As an example of an earlier response to political content on social media, he cites Meta's 2022 decision to remove Confederation's account.

The foundation also points to Brazil, where the electoral court introduced guidelines on AI in campaigns as early as 2024, and to the Munich Declaration of the same year, in which major tech companies pledged to counter the use of AI for election manipulation.

Polish Influencers and AI

In the context of Poland's political scene, Szymik names influencers and politicians actively using new communication tools, including Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik, Dominik Tarczyński and Patryk Jaki of Confederation. This phenomenon, combined with a growing number of Poles using chatbots as a source of information, has a real impact on shaping opinion ahead of the next elections, according to the foundation.

For Polish voters and tech companies, this means the campaign ahead of the 2027 elections will effectively begin much earlier than its formal start, and the readiness of parties and regulators for AI's presence in politics will be tested continuously, long before the first round of voting.