CNN
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Victor Miller, 42, recently filed paperwork to run for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, but it wasn’t exactly for him: He listed the name of a customized AI chatbot as the name he would like to appear on his ballot.
He claimed that the chatbot, named VIC (Virtual Integrated Citizen), would use technology from artificial intelligence company OpenAI. They make all political decisions and help govern the City. (VIC is not affiliated with any political party.)
“AI has helped me in my personal life, including with resume writing, and I think it could add an additional element that could help the town, and I really hope so,” Miller told CNN.
But on Tuesday, OpenAI told CNN it had cut off access to the tools Miller was using to communicate. And persuade voters. The company says using ChatGPT in this way violates its policies.
AI further complicates politics: Government regulators, businesses and consumers are still figuring out how to use AI tools responsibly, and technology is advancing at a faster pace than social, legal and regulatory progress. guardrail.
“We have taken action against this use of our technology as it violates our policy against political activity,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNN.
On its website, OpenAI says it prohibits “engagement in political campaigning or lobbying, including the creation of personalized or targeted election materials to particular demographics.”
Miller said he was motivated to set up the VIC after being denied access to records related to city policies and procedures when he requested them. Anonymously.
“If I could ask the AI questions and interact with this new intelligence, it would know the law and I would have access to the records,” he said.
The city did not respond to a request for comment on the records refusal, but Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said in a statement to CNN that he was “closely” monitoring Miller’s mayoral bid.
“Wyoming law clearly states that to run for public office you must be a ‘qualified elector,’ which requires that you be a real person,” Gray said in a statement. “Therefore, AI bots are not qualified electors.”
Gray also suggested the chatbot was essentially a facade to legitimize Miller’s candidacy. Gray said he wrote a letter to the Cheyenne city clerk expressing his concerns about the candidacy.
The public version of VIC has been removed by OpenAI, but Miller said it’s still functional on his ChatGPT account, and he plans to bring VIC, along with a microphone, to his local Cheyenne library to offer voters the opportunity to ask questions directly through the speech-to-text feature.
OpenAI told CNN it had also taken action against another British candidate who was using its AI model in his parliamentary campaign. Steve Endacott, chairman of AI company Neural Voice, answers voter questions through a chatbot called Steve AI on his site. He is running as an independent. Endacott did not respond to a request for comment.
His website offered a ChatGPT chatbot where voters could leave comments and help craft policy. Voters would ask the tool questions about AI Steve’s policies, and if there was no answer, it would do a search and craft a policy proposal. (His website is still running, but the tool is no longer powered by ChatGPT.)
While AI chatbots are becoming increasingly smart, some experts told CNN that the technology shouldn’t replace human judgement when it comes to business decisions. Every part of government.
“When we think about AI today and the future of AI, AI should not be used to make automated decisions,” he said. Jen Golbeck, professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Maryland;
“AI is always designed to help with decisions. It provides data to help humans make decisions, but it is not set up to make decisions itself.”
The emergence of AI candidates comes amid growing concern about how the spread of misinformation could affect elections, such as a fake recording of a Slovakian candidate claiming to have rigged the election earlier this year.
But Golbeck said AI could have a role in politics, helping with a variety of tasks such as filling out voter forms or giving advice on how to solve problems.
“You could train a chatbot to know everything in your office,” she says, “but the decisions should always be left to humans.”
David Karpf, an associate professor of media and public policy at George Washington University, agreed, noting that the people behind the AI candidate are leaning into a “cultural moment” and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
“Gimmicky is the right word,” Karpf told CNN. “ChatGPT is not qualified to run a government.”
Karpf said he doesn’t think lawmakers need to enact formal legislation regarding AI chatbots being elected to public office because “no one is going to vote to put an AI chatbot in charge of city government.”
Karpf also thinks the timing of these lawsuits is noteworthy. “We have a very important election coming up, and I don’t mind it being light-hearted,” he said. “That’s what this is about. We should all have a little laugh and get back to work.”
But Miller said he hopes the attention his work has received will inspire even more AI candidates in the coming months.
“I think this can extend beyond the mayor and the council. [reach the whole] “The world,” he said.
