Let’s say you want to run for Congress for a long time as an independent in a deeply Democratic state of Virginia, but the incumbent in the race won’t give you time to breathe to talk about your platform in front of the voters. You can simply run ads on social media promoting your choice, or present your case with a YouTube video where you comment on a participant’s site. Maybe contact a local newspaper to try to get an interview? Or you could use a generative AI trained to leave behind the incumbent’s social comments and published material.
That’s what Bentley Hensel aims to do in Virginia’s 8th congressional district, where he’s running as an independent challenger against Don Beyer, who has dismissed requests for another debate, saying the September platform is enough. Beyer won the district in 2022 by almost two-thirds, so why bother talking to Hensel, a no-name, freelance software engineer?
It may be difficult for some to suspend disbelief to listen to a simulacrum of a real person. ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode is so unusual in its ability to speak in such a natural and resonant way that it’s hard to even distinguish it from a real person. And companies like Character.ai and Replika are popular for offering chatbots as friendly forms. It’s not crazy to believe that voters, especially older ones, might feel like they’re watching a real debate.
Hensley said Reuters that DonBot, as the bot is called, is trained using ChatGPT’s API on official Beyer websites, press releases, and data from the Federal Election Commission. The bot is intended to provide accurate answers, although that is by no means a guarantee to anyone who has used a chatbot before. And sure enough, Reuters tested DonBot and found that while it mostly provides direct answers to policy questions, it erred in saying that Beyer didn’t recommend anyone for president when he actually endorsed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. However, since it has been trained on a narrow data set, the bot is less likely to generate false positives.
Beyer did not tell Reuters whether he will take action to stop the online debate, which took place on October 17, but a spokesman told the newspaper that Beyer. “continues to be a leading voice in Congress on the need to improve intelligence controls, including legislation to prevent bad actors from using AI to spread inaccurate election information. ” So, it sounds like he’s really unhappy.
Legal experts spoke to them Reuters he said the use of the bot may be allowed as long as Hensel provides a clear disclosure that he is not actually talking to the real Don Beyer. For Hensel, the attention he received for creating the bot alone may have been of great value. However, it seems slippery if older voters and others wrongly believe a bot that is likely to make some mistakes is truly representing the candidate. We know it’s already easy enough for older generations to get their hands on AI-generated images.
At least 26 states have taken steps to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in election communications, some even going so far as to ban politicians altogether. At the government level, there has been, unsurprisingly, little movement.
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