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General view of the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S., May 6, 2021. Picture taken May 6, 2021.
The AI who lost an election
A librarian ran for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, with a simple promise: Victor Miller would simply be the human vessel for an artificial intelligence that would run the city. He’d be a “humble meat avatar” for the Virtual Integrated Citizen, or VIC, that would make decisions and run the government if elected.
The stunt made national headlines, but voters weren’t enthused. They soundly rejected VIC and its human creator. On Aug. 20, Miller and VIC only received 327 votes out of the 11,036 cast. He placed fourth out of six candidates in the primary, with the top two vote-getters (including the incumbent mayor) advancing to the November election.
Miller’s challenge faced setbacks throughout the process. The Wyoming Secretary of State previously expressed “significant concerns” about VIC appearing — without Miller — on the state ballot, saying there needed to be real human names on the ballot. Then, OpenAI shut down access to VIC, saying it violated rules against political campaigning. (Miller later relaunched the service through OpenAI’s GPT-4 without punishment.)
After conceding, Miller announced he’s forming a new group called the Rational Governance Alliance, which seeks to expand AI decision making to promote “efficient, transparent, and unbiased” governance. So, maybe we can look for RGA candidates, or at least their human stewards, on future ballots.