What role should AI play in politics? Victor Miller, mayoral candidate in Cheyenne, Wyoming, believes that AI alone should have the power to make decisions.
According to the City of Cheyenne, Miller is running for mayor, but if you ask him, you get a different answer.
“Make no mistake: AI is on the ballot for mayor of Cheyenne,” Miller wrote in an article posted on his X account. “That’s a cold, cold fact.”
VIC, or Virtual Integrated Citizen, is an AI bot Miller created via GPT4 to serve as mayor of Cheyenne, according to the Washington Post.
Miller believes that many mistakes in politics are due to human error. In his opinion, delegating all decisions to AI would produce the best outcome in every situation.
“When it comes to Cheyenne’s ordinances, I think that’s the be-all and end-all. I think (VIC) can do it,” Miller said, referring to a more than 400-page document referenced at a city council meeting.
VIC can analyze such things in seconds, while a human might need several days or weeks to fully understand that much information.
Miller’s plan faces opposition from other mayoral candidates, one of whom, Rick Coppinger, called on the state to ban bots from running for office.
“If people believe that AI will manage their cities better than human intervention, then we have a problem,” Coppinger said in a recent interview with the Washington Post.
OpenAI, the company that owns and operates GPT4 and several other AI tools, strictly opposes the use of its services for policy making.
According to the Washington Post, the company has shut down VIC several times, each time locking Miller’s OpenAI account. Within a few hours, Miller is able to create another account, upload relevant information about the city of Cheyenne, and recreate his bot.
The “Flesh Avatar” System
Miller calls his setup a “meat avatar” system because AI bots are not allowed to run for office on their own initiative.
“This system places an AI (a bot) on the ballot by overlaying it on top of a human voter,” Miller said in an article posted on his X account. “The actual candidate is the AI, and the human is merely the intermediary.”
Miller further explained that for the system to be successful, the flesh avatar must not have veto power over the bot.
If humans intervene even once, all credibility is lost, he says.
“We simply refuse to live in a world where politicians exist,” Miller said. “We replace them with AI and reap the peace and prosperity that follows.”
