Generative artificial intelligence chatbots have proven to not be good at answering questions about the upcoming election — but one mayoral candidate said if he wins his election, he’ll use a chatbot to make all the decisions.
Victor Miller, a mayoral candidate for the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming, said he’ll depend entirely on VIC, the “Virtual Integrated Citizen” chatbot he created, to make decisions if he wins. The name Vic even appears on Cheyenne’s list of candidates for mayor.
“I realized that this entity is way smarter than me, and more importantly, way better than some of the outward-facing public servants I see,” Miller told Wired. He added that he’ll serve as VIC’s “meat puppet” to sign documents and attend meetings and other in-person events.
VIC is built on top of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.0, but Miller told Wired he didn’t ask the company for permission to use its technology. OpenAI has policies around the use of its technology in elections to prevent abuse, including not allowing “people to build applications for political campaigning and lobbying.”
An OpenAI spokesperson reportedly told Wired it has “taken action against this GPT due to a violation of our policies against political campaigning.” OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Miller told Wired he hopes OpenAI doesn’t remove his chatbot, but that he will move VIC to Meta’s open-source Llama 3 if he needs to. Miller did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said his office is “monitoring this very closely to ensure uniform application of the Election Code,” in a statement shared with Quartz.
“Wyoming law is clear that, to run for office, one must be a ‘qualified elector,’ which necessitates being a real person,” Gray said. “Therefore, an AI bot is not a qualified elector. Furthermore, even if ‘VIC (Virtual Integrated Citizen)‘ is being used as a fake name to appear on the ballot for a qualified elector, Wyoming law also requires that candidates running for office use the full name by which they are known.”
In a letter to Cheyenne City Clerk Kristina Jones, Gray wrote: “Mr. Miller’s application is in violation of both the letter, and spirit, of Wyoming’s Election Code. Because your office certifies municipal candidates to the county clerk, I am writing this letter to provide my opinion that Mr. Miller’s application for nomination should be rejected.”
But Miller told Wired he’s technically the candidate on the ballot, and that on the ballot, Vic is short for his name, Victor. He also told Cowboy State Daily he doesn’t expect to win the mayoral race, but that it’s also not impossible.
“I think the serious commentary on this issue says AI will not replace people, people using AI will replace people who don’t use AI,” he told Cowboy State Daily, echoing a common refrain among AI industry boosters. “I believe all politicians someday will openly admit that they use AI, just as they do now openly admit they use Google Calendar.”