Will you vote for AI Steve in the UK?

An artificial intelligence (AI) candidate is on the ballot for the United Kingdom’s general election next month, NBC News reported.

“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, the report said.

“AI Steve is the AI co-pilot,” Endacott, quoted by NBC News, said. “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.

In 2022, Endacott unsuccessfully ran in a local election under the Conservative Party. He received less than 500 votes.

This time, the unusual nature of his candidacy stirred some conversation on X over the weekend, when news of AI Steve’s launch leaked online and prompted around 1,000 calls to the AI proxy in one night, NBC News reported.

Source: NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-candidate-running-parliament-uk-says-ai-can-humanize-politics-rcna156991

Photo from Singularity Hub. https://singularityhub.com/2024/06/13/say-hello-to-ai-steve-the-chatbot-running-for-uk-parliament/

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