Populist hijacking, according to ChatGPT, consists of appropriating social policies and conditioning them to partisan or clientelist criteria. Left-wing populism promises to expand the welfare state with a strongly redistributive discourse that may clash with fiscal sustainability, and right-wing populism defends social benefits but "only for those at home" and excludes immigrants or minorities. Both cases carry a great risk: the welfare state may cease to be universal and become a tool of political polarization instead of an instrument of social cohesion.