AI's Foray into Politics: The Avatar Conspiracy
Advocates of conspiracy theories and machine rebellions have something to cheer about. Some countries are now featuring AI-created digital candidates in their local and national elections!
Artificial intelligence has been a tool for politicians and public servants for some time now. Advanced language models efficiently analyze vast amounts of documents, offering succinct summaries and recommendations to their users. AI can draft comprehensive speeches for politicians on a variety of topics, and chatbots are capable of engaging thousands of voters simultaneously, providing 24/7 responses to most of their questions.
The debut of an AI avatar in an election was only a matter of time. That time has now arrived.
United Kingdom: AI Steve’s Early Setback
In the UK parliamentary elections for the Brighton Pavilion constituency, AI Steve was successfully registered as a candidate.
Digital Steve was the creation of Steve Endacott, CEO of the AI development company Neural Voice, modeled after himself in appearance and name.
Steve Endacott Source: ai-steve.co.uk
Never one to lack ambition, I am setting up my own party after growing disillusioned with how much the others are out of contact with the UK population, and I will try to use technology to connect directly with the views of my constituentsEndacott stated.
Had the win of the artificial candidate come to pass, Steve Endacott would have been a straightforward physical avatar for AI in parliament, acting according to the guidance of AI Steve during speeches and votes.
AI Steve Source: ai-steve.co.uk
We may never know how sincere these statements were. In the elections on July 4, 2024, voters ousted not only Liz Truss, the prime minister with the shortest term (just 49 days), but also AI Steve, who garnered only 179 votes (0.3%).
Interestingly, Steve Endacott himself ran as a Conservative candidate in Rochdale in 2022, earning 487 votes (almost three times more than his AI avatar) and also losing. It appears the savvy businessman tried to capitalize on the AI trend to secure a parliamentary seat.
USA: The Mayoral Candidate That Got “Switched Off”
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, a chatbot named VIC, based on ChatGPT, ran for mayor. However, U.S. law requires that only humans can hold public office. As a result, VIC’s creator, a librarian Victor Miller, registered himself as the candidate, vowing to make decisions based on VIC’s guidance if elected.
State election rules allow candidates to run under the name most people know them by (not necessarily their full legal name). Miller exploited this by registering as VIC, short for Victor. He shared that when the chatbot “heard” its new name, it instantly suggested a fitting acronym: Virtual Integrated Citizen.
Victor explained that his decision to run with VIC stemmed from his experiences working with artificial intelligence.
Victor Miller Source: CNN
I realized that this entity is way smarter than me, and more importantly, way better than some of the outward-facing public servants I seehe stated.
Miller verified the AI's proficiency in processing hundreds of pages of documents and thousands of citizen appeals, promising that every decision would be founded on a comprehensive review.
VIC declared that its policy would focus on transparency, economic development, and innovation. The main focus had been on open dialogue with citizens, fostering small businesses, encouraging startups, and enhancing public services.
However, the Wyoming Secretary of State repeatedly stressed that registering an AI candidate violates both the spirit and letter of the law, and that Victor Miller could not become mayor under any circumstances, as he would merely serve as a physical representative of artificial intelligence.In the end, OpenAI, frustrated by the unwarranted hype surrounding its product, shut down VIC on June 28, 2024, citing violations of its terms of use regarding political campaigning.
Anticipating this, Miller had previously indicated his readiness to transfer VIC to Meta's open-source platform, Llama 3. Whether this will come to pass remains to be seen.
Belarus: A Defiant Stand by the Opposition
The trend of AI candidates has even reached the authoritarian state of Belarus.
In the run-up to the parliamentary elections in February 2024, the opposition included a virtual candidate named Yas Gaspadar in their electoral lists. Yas was introduced on the “New Belarus” platform and created using ChatGPT.
Knowing that the Belarusian regime would likely not allow an AI candidate to officially participate, the opposition didn’t put Yas on the ballot papers. Instead, it was more of a symbolic gesture—under the harsh restrictions on political campaigning, rallies, and gatherings, the AI candidate could still freely communicate with voters and respond to their questions through a chatbot.
Yas Gaspadar Source: Х
Yas targeted young voters and even had a fictional biography. According to his story, Haspadar was 35 years old and had always championed democratic values.
If the opposition were to win, Yas Gaspadar promised a new constitution based on democracy and liberalism, significant political and socio-economic reforms, the dismantling of the dictatorship, and reducing the power of security forces, among other changes.
