Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Introducing VIC, your AI mayor
Victor Miller isn’t your typical mayoral candidate. Running for mayor of Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming, Mill has pledged to turn executive decision-making responsibilities over to an AI bot called VIC he created on ChatGPT. Miller told Wired magazine that he’ll merely serve as VIC’s “meat puppet.”
State rules wouldn’t let Miller register VIC’s candidate solely as VIC — which stands for Virtual Integrated Citizen — so Miller himself had to be the named candidate on the ballot. Wyoming’s Secretary of State Chuck Gray said he is monitoring this candidacy very closely and noted that “an AI bot is not a qualified elector” under state law.
Whether Miller — or VIC — will be able to remain on the ballot is an open question that tests the limit of state elections laws, an edge case for the AI era that, if Miller has his way, might not seem so strange in a few years.
While officials aren’t usually keen to take orders from a machine, we are starting to see governments use the technology to boost efficiency. The British government, for example, has started a pilot program using AI to streamline its work. So, elected or not, AI is coming to bureaucracies.