Victor Miller is running for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, making an unusual campaign promise: If elected, this will happen not be the AI bot will decide. VIC, Virtual Integrated Citizen, is a ChatGPT-based chatbot created by Miller. Miller says the bot has better ideas and a better understanding of the law than many people currently working in government.
“I realized that this being was much smarter than me and, more importantly, much better than some of the outward-looking government officials I meet,” he says. According to Miller, the decisions will be made by the VIC, and Miller will be its “meat puppet,” attending meetings, signing documents and otherwise doing the corporeal work of running the city.
However, it remains an open question whether VIC – and Victor – will be able to run at all.
Because it’s illegal for a bot to run for office, Miller says he’s technically on the ballot, at least on the candidate’s paperwork filed with the state.
When Miller went to register his candidacy at the county clerk’s office, he says, “he wanted to go by Vic without my last name. So I read the statute, so it just said that you have to print what is commonly referred to. So you know, most people call me Vic. My name is Wiktor Miller. So in the vote, Vic is short for Victor Miller, the man.
When Miller returned home from reporting, he told the then-unnamed chatbot and claimed that he had “actually invented the name Virtual Integrated Citizen.”
In a statement to WIRED, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said, “We are monitoring this situation very closely to ensure uniform application of the Election Code.” Gray said anyone running for office must be a “qualified elector,” “which requires being a real person. Therefore, the AI bot is not a legitimate voter.” Gray also sent a letter to the county clerk expressing concerns about VIC and suggesting that the clerk deny Miller’s candidacy application.
In the letter, Gray wrote: “Mr. Miller’s motion violates both the letter and spirit of the Wyoming Election Code.” Gray went on to say that even if “Vic” actually represented Miller – and not a bot – it could still be a violation of the law because it did not include Miller’s full name.
VIC is built on OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.0, and Miller says he hasn’t contacted the company asking for permission to utilize its software to build his bot candidate. The company has specifics guidelines about how its products can be used in elections, but nothing about managing bots.
OpenAI spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois told WIRED in a statement that the company “took action against this GPT for violating our political campaign policies.”
Miller hopes the company won’t shut down VIC, but he’s willing to port it to Meta Llama 3, which is open source, if needed.
VIC/Miller will face incumbent Patrick Collins and several other candidates. Collins did not respond to a request for comment about his AI opponent.