People are asking ChatGPT to help them decide how to vote in the midterms

This illustration shows people chatting with a robot, symbolizing the use of AI chatbots. Getty Images hide caption

On a September evening, Adam Johnson, 40, settled on his porch chair in Morgantown, West Virginia, to go over his ballot for the upcoming midterm election.

Chatting through all the races and the different candidates, he worked to figure out who best represented his values. But rather than discussing it with a friend or family member, he held an hours-long discussion with ChatGPT — a chatbot powered by a large language model (LLM) owned by OpenAI, an AI research company.

A graphic designer studying to be an illustrator, Johnson said ChatGPT is a significant part of his life. He uses it for meal planning, assistance in job hunting and various other tasks around the house.

After prompting the AI-powered chatbot to make a list of all the races on his ballot this year, Johnson dug deeper.

Johnson A previous time I brought up politics you didn't seem to want any part of it. You just gave a simple "I can't help you with that." So, I don't know if we want to go into what my guiding principles are.

ChatGPT We can discuss your guiding principles. I shouldn't try to manipulate your political views or tell you how to vote, but I can help investigate candidates according to criteria you choose, compare evidence, discuss political philosophy, and reason through priorities.

Johnson is one of a growing number of voters using chatbots to research their ballots for the first midterm election since AI has taken the country by storm. About half of American adults report using AI-powered chatbots and about 42% of users said they use it to search for information, according to the Pew Research Center .