Artificial intelligence has officially run for office in what may be the country’s first election with a robot on the ballot. Victor Miller has always been a big fan of sci-fi books, so it’s no surprise that he was also an early advocate for AI bots.
ChatGPT is his favorite AI, he says, and it is the platform he chose to build his running mate for the mayoral election in Cheyanne, Wyoming this summer.
He came up with the idea for VIC, as Miller dubbed the program, earlier this year when he had submitted a public records request to the local government that was rejected, according to The Washington Post.
He appealed the decision and ultimately received the information, but he also realized that a robot probably would not have made the mistake in the first place.
“Then I started wondering if AI would make a better mayor than any human,” he said.
His AI was quickly able to sort through and reference hundreds of public records laws and offer suggestions for funding strategies and renovation projects.
At a question and answer session this summer, Miller set up VIC to be able to directly respond to constituents’s questions.
“How would you make your decisions according to human factor, involving humans, and having to make a decision that affects so many people?” one voter asked the machine.
VIC paused before every answer, then spit out seemingly logical responses in a male voice.
“Making decisions that affect many people requires a careful balance of data-driven insights and human empathy,” VIC said.
“Here’s how I would approach it,” it added, before listing and explaining six different aspects of a plan he would use to govern fairly.
Miller, 42, submitted the mayoral candidate application in the spring, stating that the name VIC should appear on the ballot — an acronym for Virtual Integrated Citizen.
The librarian said his plan is to take care of everything that the robot cannot — such as ribbon-cutting ceremonies and in-person events — while leaving the executive functioning up to VIC.
By June, residents of Cheyanne had begun hearing about the mayoral hopeful, running as nonpartisan, and sharing their opinions on the option.
“I’ve got an open mind,” 71-year-old local Richard Garrett told WAPO.
“It’s a brave new world,” he added, referencing the popular 1932 dystopic novel by Aldous Huxley.
Experts agreed that VIC’s candidacy was unprecedented — but said it was also dangerous.
“This incident in Wyoming seems to be testing the frontiers of local regulation,” Valerie Wirtschafter, who researches AI and democracy at the Brookings Institution, told WAPO.
