As Britain approaches next month’s election, the country is seeing for the first time a new generation of politicians: artificial intelligence candidate (A.I). AI Steve, an avatar of the real Steven Endacott, a businessman from Brighton, is running for Parliament as an independent candidate.

Citizens will be able to vote for AI Steve, as well as ask him about his political positions or ask about their own problems. The AI ​​avatar will then input suggestions and requests into its platform.

AI Steve, AI candidate in the UK election

Endacott will be the direct representative attending meetings and parliamentary sessions on behalf of AI Steve. He assured that he sees his avatar as a way to promote a more direct form of democracy. “We’re actually reinventing politics by using AI as a technology base, as a co-pilot, not to replace politicians, but to really connect them with society, with their constituents,” Endacott said.

Currently, Steve’s AI is incorrectly listed as Steve AI, something that Endacott is working to fix.

AI Steve was designed by Neural Voice, an artificial intelligence voice company led by Endacott. According to Jeremy Smith, one of the company’s founders, AI Steve is capable of carrying up to 10,000 conversations at once. “The key element is to create your own database,” Smith said. “And how to get customer information into it.”

The idea for AI Steve came from Endacott’s own frustration trying to enter the world of politics to advocate for issues he cared about. “I am very concerned about the environment. “We need a lot of changes in government to really help control climate change,” he stressed. “The only way to do that is to stop talking openly and get in the shops and start actually changing policy.” When Endacott tried to run for office in previous years, he said he felt it came down to partisan maneuvering and dealing with which seats or districts were “safe,” rather than responding to real community needs.

Steve’s AI, he stressed, will be different. AI avatars will transcribe and analyze conversations with voters and ask policy questions to “validators,” or regular people who will indicate whether they are concerned about an issue or want a particular regulation in place.

Endacott explained that his team planned to contact passengers departing from the Brighton train stop, about an hour from London, asking them to fill in a form. email a quick survey of politics on the way to or from town to help fill this role.

“Having a voting system with validators who check those policies to make sure they make sense, and who also have the controls to say, ‘In Parliament, we want to vote this way,’ makes sense to me .”

AI Steve has only been around for about a day, but Endacott and Smith share that the main concerns expressed by people who have contacted this AI avatar are about the conflict in Palestine and local issues like trash collection.

Although Endacott considers his political opinions or preferences may differ from AI Steve’s at some point, he ensures that he is committed to voting according to voter preferences expressed through AI Steve.

“I know it sounds obvious, that a politician should know what his constituents want to achieve. And if you don’t like it, tough luck. [para él o ella]. “Let him leave his job.”

Article originally published on WIRED. Adapted by Andrei Osornio.

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