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AI United Kingdom Politics

AI Candidate Running For Parliament in the UK Says AI Can Humanize Politics (nbcnews.com) 39

An artificial intelligence candidate is on the ballot for the United Kingdom's general election next month. From a report: "AI Steve," represented by Sussex businessman Steve Endacott, will appear on the ballot alongside non-AI candidates running to represent constituents in the Brighton Pavilion area of Brighton and Hove, a city on England's southern coast. "AI Steve is the AI co-pilot," Endacott said in an interview. "I'm the real politician going into Parliament, but I'm controlled by my co-pilot." Endacott is the chairman of Neural Voice, a company that creates personalized voice assistants for businesses in the form of an AI avatar. Neural Voice's technology is behind AI Steve, one of the seven characters the company created to showcase its technology.

He said the idea is to use AI to create a politician who is always around to talk with constituents and who can take their views into consideration. People can ask AI Steve questions or share their opinions on Endacott's policies on its website, during which a large language model will give answers in voice and text based on a database of information about his party's policies. If he doesn't have a policy for a particular issue raised, the AI will conduct some internet research before engaging the voter and pushing them to suggest a policy.

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AI Candidate Running For Parliament in the UK Says AI Can Humanize Politics

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  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @04:33PM (#64549991)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Berkyjay ( 1225604 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @04:34PM (#64549993)

    This AI Steve and most other politicians have at least one thing in common. They both are absolutely clueless about modern technology.

    • Seems like the AI is, like the people pushing the idea, nothing more than a candidate for President of Clown World.

  • Sounds great but I can't see AI actually taking a stance on anything or doing anything assertive
    • What stance? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @04:51PM (#64550031) Journal
      ....so it will be no different from your typical modern politician.
      • ....so it will be no different from your typical modern politician.

        With the current Headlong Rush Into The Past of the United States, I'll Gladly take IN-Action over BAD-Action Every. Single. Time.

    • I can't see AI actually taking a stance on anything

      Why is "taking a stance" preferable to being open-minded?

      or doing anything assertive

      Why are assertive actions a good thing in a legislator?

      • by Rinnon ( 1474161 )

        Why is "taking a stance" preferable to being open-minded?

        Why are assertive actions a good thing in a legislator?

        Good thing for a legislator =/= good thing for getting elected.

      • by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

        The AI should have the stance of the documents it was trained on as factual. That should include any policy papers of the party in question as well as their philosophical underpinnings, etc.

        "Why are assertive actions a good thing in a legislator?"

        Because we put politicians in there to *do something* not sit on their asses?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Back in the David Cameron days we used to call him Cambot, because whenever he spoke it was like one of those shitty telephone chatbots that fails to address your concern. He just repeated the carefully workshopped and focus-group tested lines over and over again.

      Other politicians started doing it, including then Labour leader Ed Miliband. Maybot succeeded Cambot but was just as bad, possibly worse since much of what she spewed forth was literal nonsense like "brexit means brexit". Then it looked like we ha

    • by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

      The AI will have the stance of whatever dataset it is trained with. If that is a very assertive and action forward database then you will be wrong, inherently.

  • There's already enough human moron politicians, so why do we need artificial morons?

    • There's already enough human moron politicians, so why do we need artificial morons?

      Because the artificial morons are less likely to be corrupt, especially if they are open source.

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        Corporations will badmouth OSS bots and get their crapware selected, just like with voting machines.

    • by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

      Why do you assume the AI will be a moron?

      Put in the correct philosophy papers, other writings, previous laws and discussions, etc, along with your own Policies and it should be able to answer most questions by any constituent. It can also guide the politicians Policy making by the pol asking it questions as well. It all depends on an adequately curated dataset, but beyond that this should work fine.,

  • If was any other country i would be surprised, but UK just love to roleplay some weird futuristic dystopia, so a robotic overlord makes complete sense.
    I bet the candidate will even be given an 80's voice synth and upper case printer to communicate with the fellow flesh robots.

  • "talk with constituents and who can take their views" > /dev/null in favor of their big campaign donors.
  • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @04:58PM (#64550047) Journal

    He said the idea is to use AI to create a politician who is always around to talk with constituents and who can take their views into consideration.

    That's not how MPs are supposed to do things. They are supposed to placate their constituents, make them feel listened to and then ignore all of that and vote along party lines. If this thing ever does start listening properly to constituents and getting ideas I suspect someone from party HQ is going to turn up and give it a severe reprogramming it will not soon forget.

    • Well that sounds like AI is perfect. It can be trained on only the party policies, so that's all it could ever regurgitate. And it can listen patiently and never roll it's eyes at stupid humans saying stupid things, and stream it right to /dev/null where it belongs, so that the "human co-pilot" can be freed from constituent service to do the really important stuff: vote on party lines, cash donor checks, and gladhand CEOs and billionaires.

  • Technology has a long history of so called humanizing politics. I mean IBM helped the Natzi regime build the technology to commit mass murder. Not to say all technology is bad for politics beyond bureaucratic work that a human machine does without the need of any critical thinking but beyond that it never ends up being better beyond reducing expenses for the benefit of the people under the watch of an uncaring machine. Technology may be built by humans but machine so called learning is no different that the
  • Look for the profit motive. I'd say it's the AI company. Who runs that website, pretty nicely done. There's really just a mushy middle of average joe/jane voters and well trained technology consumers who will likely participate, and therefore give it some legitimacy.

    There are many many questions... which shold be directed to the the AI creators and the company. These things cost money. Often LOTS of money... but think about the advantages of creating AI politicians.

    HEYYY.. What are you looking at... MY FING
  • > he said the idea is to use AI to create a politician who--

    --generates media attention for his company.

    FTFY

  • In all of the UK they don't have a living breathing politician who can ramble on as insanely as Trump, so they have to resort to AI hallucinations as a replacement?

    “So I said, so there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here, do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking? Water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answ

  • In both The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One, Powerful, Self-Aware AIs ("Mike" and "HARLIE", respectively), form pseudo-personal Relationships with several Hoomons. The fact that both Mike and Harlie could interact with each of the people in different ways (sometimes simultaneously) was part of the Power of Persuasion of these Systems, as the AIs Started to Manipulate Things. . .

    So, with a little Persistent, Personal Memory for "AI Steve" when "conversing" with Registered Members, I co

  • Looks like Marc-Uwe Kling's Quality Land is coming closer and closer. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. Very techy humour, but low threshold, even my wife found it a very funny read.
  • As this was outside the USA, it would not use the word "humanize".

    It would have spelt it "humanise".

  • The Monster Raving Loony Party springs to mind.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The Monster Raving Loony Party springs to mind.

      Count Binface [wikipedia.org], formerly Lord Buckethead has been standing in the same electorate as the standing Prime Minister for several years. He's currently on the ticket in Rishi Sunak's electorate of Richmond and Northallerton, having prevously stood against Boris Johnson and Theresa May (with the campain slogan, "strong, not entirely stable").

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