A ‘smarter than human’ AI bot could be the next mayor of Wyoming in US

Victor Miller said that he will run for the mayor of Cheyenne in Wyoming and if he is elected he won't be making any decisions but will use chatbot VIC.

A ChatGPT-based chatbot is in the election fray in the US. When Victor Miller said that he will run for the mayor of Cheyenne in Wyoming, he said that if he is elected he won't be making any decisions but will instead use chatbot VIC, the Virtual Integrated Citizen. He said, “I realized that this entity is way smarter than me, and more importantly, way better than some of the outward-facing public servants I see."

Victor Miller said that when he went to file his candidacy, he “wanted to use Vic without my last name."

VIC will make the decisions and I will be its “meat puppet” who will attend meetings and sign documents, he said. Although, the chatbot may not be allowed to run for office legally.

Victor Miller said that when he went to file his candidacy, he “wanted to use Vic without my last name. And so I had read the statute, so it merely said that you have to print what you are generally referred to as. So you know, most people call me Vic. My name is Victor Miller. So on the ballot Vic is short for Victor Miller, the human.”

After filing the papers, he told the chatbot about it and said that it “actually came up with the name Virtual Integrated Citizen.”

Wyoming secretary of state Chuck Gray said, “We are monitoring this very closely to ensure uniform application of the Election Code" and anyone running for office must be a “qualified elector which necessitates being a real person. Therefore, an AI bot is not a qualified elector. Mr. Miller’s application is in violation of both the letter, and spirit, of Wyoming’s Election Code.”

VIC is built on top of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.0 and the company's spokesperson said that it had “taken action against this GPT due to a violation of our policies against political campaigning.”