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United States Politics

Virginia Congressional Candidate Creates AI Chatbot as Debate Stand-in For Incumbent (reuters.com) 21

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
A long-shot congressional challenger in Virginia is so determined to debate the Democratic incumbent one more time that he created an AI chatbot to stand in for the candidate in case he's a no-show. From a report: Less than a month from election day, the race for Virginia's 8th congressional district is all but decided. The sitting congressman in this deeply Democratic district, Don Beyer, won handily in 2022 with nearly three-quarters of the vote. Bentley Hensel, a software engineer for good government group CivicActions, who is running as an independent, said he was frustrated by what he said was Beyer's refusal to appear for additional debates since September. So he hatched a unique plan that will test the bounds of both propriety and technology: a debate with Beyer's artificial intelligence likeness. And the candidate has created the AI chatbot himself -- without Beyer's permission.

Call it the modern-day equivalent of the empty chair on stage. DonBot, as the AI is playfully known, is being trained on Beyer's official websites, press releases, and data from the Federal Election Commission. The text-based AI is based on an API from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. The bot is not intended to mislead anyone and is trained to provide accurate answers, said Hensel, who has raised roughly $17,000 in outside contributions and personal loans to his campaign, compared to Beyer's $1.5 million fund.

Virginia Congressional Candidate Creates AI Chatbot as Debate Stand-in For Incumbent More | Reply

Virginia Congressional Candidate Creates AI Chatbot as Debate Stand-in For Incumbent

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  • I'm fully prepared to accept that best faith attempts are being made, but ... there seems to be the potential for just a slight conflict of interest here.

    • Also a pretty risky assumption that they will be able to "win" against the AI.

      Wouldn't that be embarassing if it fact checks them and gets a few zingers in there.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Also a pretty risky assumption that they will be able to "win" against the AI.

        Wouldn't that be embarassing if it fact checks them and gets a few zingers in there.

        The current trend is to try breaking chatbots, so it's going to be amusing to turn the debate into getting the chatbot to sing Daisy until it's shut off...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      The AI bot would only be an accurate facsimile if it refused to debate as well.
    • I don't think the words "best faith" apply to someone who holds democracy in such contempt. Someone who thinks election debates both can and should be reduced to automated responses is someone whose mind already functions like a bot. I.e., a soulless piece of crap who thinks everyone else is too.

    • Misleading would be the Virginia GOP candidate Derrick Anderson, who is single, who posed in a campaign ad with a friend's wife and three daughters to look like a family man... US Republican Candidate Poses With Friend's Wife, Daughters For Campaign Ad [ndtv.com]

  • Sounds like a case for the Supreme Court. Arguing it could keep them out of other mischief.
    • This so-called "court" has already overtly ruled that legal fictions like corporations are people, so it wouldn't be a huge leap. If a rich man can multiply his power and rights by filing a piece of paper incorporating a business, he can certainly do the same by writing (more likely, buying, and even more likely stealing) a chat bot.

      • This so-called "court" has already overtly ruled that legal fictions like corporations are people,

        Not exactly. What the court opinion (Citizens United) said in 2010 was that corporations have first amendment rights to spend money as they wish in candidate elections. Not quite identical to saying that corporations are people.

        (earlier decisions confirmed that corporations have some other rights that people have, such as the right to do things like enter into contracts).

        • The Bill of Rights only applies to people. If the First Amendment applies to corporations, then it's a short hop to all the others applying to it also, including giving each and every separate incorporation (i.e., piece of paper) its own voting rights completely determined by the owners.

          The fact that the same "court" has repeatedly insinuated that everyone from foreigners to prison inmates to children are not people just shows their lawlessness and malign intent.

          They refuse to recognize as inherent f
          • Your own interpretation is clearly wrong and attempting to extrapolate from it isn't doing your argument any additional favors. You've bought into a simplistic description created by opponents of the ruling to cast it in a negative light. The ruling also applies to labor unions and their political contributions as well, so you should be really careful if you're wishing for the decision to be reversed by a future court.

            All the ruling does is establish that for the purposes of political campaign contributi
  • It is courteous to include a mentioning when posting a story submitted by a poster. [slashdot.org]

  • This is nothing. It's widely believed in the UK (although I don't think they actually proved it) that a lot of the candidates Reform stood in the last election were fake, and their profiles created by 'AI'. At least this one has a real person standing in the election.

  • This is almost smart.

    Instead of trying (and inevitably failing) to train the network to pass as one's opponent, try to train it to ask just the right questions to have something approaching the Socratic Method, so that you can explain your positions and why those positions are the best positions. IMHO that could actually get interesting and informative results.

    Just don't call it a "debate" (since it isn't) or refer to the other character as your opponent in the election (since it can't be). By fucking this

  • Cute idea.

    To be fair, though, he needs to make a chatbot of HIS positions, trained on HIS "official websites, press releases, and data from the Federal Election Commission".

    Then the two chatbots can debate each other, on a even playing ground with no advantage to either.

    That might be fun!

  • And said that Democrats were controlling the weather to influence the election.

    Ignoring the constant calls for violence from the top of the ticket I don't know how anyone in this day and age can call themselves a Republican let alone put on the red hat.

    I do know that the red hat crowd complains about getting dirty looks when they wear those hats which is hilarious because those are microaggressions...
  • So he set up a fake AI/LLM chat-bot of his opponent and he's effectively answering the phone and talking to it.

    We all know that AI/LLM is in porn, but this guy is jerking off in public.

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