As the UK heads towards elections next month, the country is witnessing for the first time a new breed of politicians: Artificial intelligence filter (Amnesty International). AI Steve, an avatar of the real Stephen Endacott, a Brighton businessman, is running for Parliament as an independent candidate.
Citizens will be able to vote for Steve, as well as ask him about his political position or raise their own problems to him. The AI avatar will then integrate the suggestions and requests into its platform.
iSteve, Amnesty International candidate in the UK election
Endacott will be the personal representative attending parliamentary meetings and sessions on behalf of AI Steve. He stresses that he sees his avatar as a way to promote a more direct form of democracy. “We're actually reinventing politics using AI as a technology base, as a co-pilot, not to replace politicians, but to really connect them to their constituencies, their voters,” Endacott says.
AI Steve is currently mistakenly listed as Steve AI, something Endacott is working to correct.
AI Steve was designed by Neural Voice, an AI audio company headed by Endacott. According to Jeremy Smith, co-founder of the company, AI Steve can have up to 10,000 conversations at a time. “One of the key elements is creating your own database,” Smith says. “And how to integrate customer information into it.”
The idea for AI Steve came from Endacott's own frustration trying to enter politics to advocate for issues he cared about. “I'm very concerned about the environment. We need a lot of changes in government to help control climate change. “The only way to do that is to stop talking on the surface and get into the store and start actually changing policy.” When Endacott tried to run for president in the years Previously, he said he felt it was down to partisan maneuvering and manipulating seats or areas deemed “safe”, rather than responding to the needs of real people.
He stresses that AI Steve will be different. The AI avatar will transcribe and analyze conversations with voters and ask political questions to “scrutinizers,” or ordinary people who will indicate whether they are concerned about an issue or want to enact a specific regulation.
Endacott explains that his team intends to contact passengers traveling from Brighton train station, about an hour from London, to ask them to fill out the questionnaire. e-mail Brief surveys about politics on their way to or from town to help fill the role.
“Having a voting system with auditors who check those policies to make sure they make sense, and also have the ability to say, ‘In Parliament, we want to vote this way,’ makes sense to me,” Endacott says.
AI Steve has only been around for a day or so, but Endacott and Smith shared that the main concerns expressed by people who came into contact with this AI avatar were related to the conflict in Palestine and local issues like garbage collection.
Although Endacott believes that his political opinions or preferences may differ from those of AI Steve at some point, he affirms that he is committed to voting in accordance with the preferences of voters expressed through AI Steve.
“I know it seems so obvious that a politician should know what his voters want him to achieve. And if you don't like that, bad luck.” [para él o ella]. “Let him quit his job.”
Article originally published in WIRED. Adapted by Andre Osornio.
The Spanish television program decided to devote one of its segments to this purpose Influencercreated by artificial intelligence, to show an in-depth look behind the scenes Survivors.
