As Britain heads towards next month’s election, the country is seeing its first appearance of a up-to-date breed of politician: an artificial intelligence candidate. AI Steve, an avatar of the real Steven Endacott, a Brighton businessman, is running for Parliament as an independent.
Voters will be able to cast their votes for AI Steve, as well as ask about political positions or raise their own issues. AI Steve will then incorporate suggestions and requests into his platform.
Endacott will be the personal representative attending meetings and parliamentary sessions on behalf of AI Steve. He says he sees AI Steve as a way to enable a more direct form of democracy. “I think we’re actually reinventing politics, using AI as a technology base, as a co-pilot, not to replace politicians, but to really connect them with the public, with their electorate,” Endacott says.
Currently, AI Steve is incorrectly listed on the ballot as AI Steve, which Endacott is working to correct.
AI Steve was designed by Neural Voice, an AI voice company whose CEO is Endacott. According to Jeremy Smith, the company’s co-founder, AI Steve can conduct up to 10,000 conversations simultaneously. “The key element is to create your own database,” Smith says. “And how to enter customer data into it.”
The idea for AI Steve came from Endacott’s frustration with trying to enter politics to advocate for the causes he cared about. “I am very concerned about the environment. To actually help control climate change, we need a lot of changes in government,” he says. “The only way to do that is to stop talking to those around you, get into the tent and start actually changing policy.” When Endacott tried to run for office in recent years, he said he felt like it was all about partisan competition and worrying about which seats or districts were “safe” rather than responding to the needs of real people.
AI Steve, he claims, will be different. AI Steve will transcribe and analyze conversations with voters and present policy issues to “validators,” ordinary people who can indicate whether they care about a given issue or want a particular policy implemented.
Endacott says his team plans to contact commuters at a train station in Brighton, about an hour from London, asking them to complete low email surveys about policies on commuting to or from the city to aid them complete this role.
“Having a voting system made up of validators that actually checks these rules to make sure they’re consistent with common sense, and also being able to say, ‘In Parliament, we want you to vote this way,’ just makes sense to me ” says Endacott.
AI Steve has only been live for about a day, but Endacott and Smith say the main concerns expressed by people contacting AI Steve revolved around the conflict in Palestine and local issues such as garbage collection.
While Endacott says he expects his own opinions or political preferences may differ from AI Steve’s at some point, he claims he is committed to voting in accordance with voter preferences expressed through AI Steve.
“Certainly in a democracy this is what your voters want,” he says. “I know it sounds so obvious that a politician should be told by his voters what to do. And if he doesn’t like it, too bad. Leave work.”