Artificial intelligence is known to make things up and manipulate people—could a career in politics be far behind? Not in southern England, where businessman Steve Endacott claims he has put an "AI candidate" on the UK general election ballot, the Guardian reports. Endacott says he'll personally attend Parliament and take orders from "AI Steve" if the virtual politician wins as an MP on July 4. "I'm just a bit of a numpty being told what to do," Endacott tells the Independent. "That is the whole idea of democracy. You have to put away your own personal politics, your own ego, and actually do what your constituents want, which is quite radical in politics."
The idea came from Endacott's failed run for municipal office in 2022, when he saw "an old boys and girls club" in charge and lawmakers "completely disconnected" from the people. Endacott's AI voice firm Neural Voice then created AI Steve, who's now soliciting opinions on popular issues like affordable housing, electric vehicles, and the four-day workweek at a campaign website. Endacott claims AI Steve can have 10,000 conversations at once and will allow certain local residents called "validators" to vote on which policies to enact, Wired reports.
Endacott, 59, shrugs off comparisons to Skynet in the Terminator movies (an AI system that became dangerously self-aware) and the dystopian Black Mirror episode in which a rude CGI bear runs for political office. "The difficulty is a lot of people react against it before they have read it," says the self-proclaimed centrist and environmental advocate. "There will be a generational gap here. Some people will go, what on earth is going on? We are trying to reinvent democracy, it's serious, it's not a joke or a PR stunt." AI Steve is running as an independent for Brighton Pavilion, where the Green Party's Caroline Lucas stepped down after 13 years as MP. (More artificial intelligence stories.)
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