Outside Source
United States congressional candidate for Virginia Bentley Hensel used an AI chatbot, “DonBot,” in place of opponent Don Beyer in a debate, highlighting AI’s increasing role in politics.
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Artificial intelligence can’t hide from politics, or rather politics can’t hide from AI.
In an unusual political move, Bentley Hensel, an independent candidate running for United States Congress in Virginia’s 8th District, leveraged an AI-powered bot to participate in a debate after the district’s incumbent, Don Beyer, declined an invitation.
On Oct. 17, a debate was held between Hensel, another independent candidate, David Kennedy, and the virtual stand-in, DonBot, in the lead-up to the 2024 November elections.
AI-powered debate
Hensel, a software engineer by trade, said he turned to AI as a response to what he described as Beyer’s unwillingness to engage in a public debate.
The bot was given a crash course on Beyer’s policy views and trained to represent his policy positions by drawing on available data sources, including his publicly available statements, press releases and campaign material.
DonBot was initially built by Hensel using OpenAI’s technology, but prior to the debate, Hensel said he migrated the bot off of Openai and onto “open-source” models via Cloudflare Workers. OpenAI banned Hensel’s account due to his political uses.
Source: Bentley Hensel
Hensel said in the future he plans to create a Trump and Harris bot debate, “where anyone can ask both candidates their opinion(s) on any issue.”
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The debate between the independent Virginia Congress candidates was streamed online and was met with multiple hiccups, including the DonBot not being audible during some answers.
Supporting AI regulation
Hensel, along with the bot-ifyed Beyer have both been vocal about their stance on tech and innovation — a trend among politicians up for election.
On his personal website, Hensel describes his mission as one to introduce “technological innovation and transparency to the federal government” so that it is effective for all citizens.
During his time in office, Beyer has already proposed legislation to regulate AI security for risk incident mitigation. In his proposition, he urged Congress to establish clear boundaries around its deployment, particularly in political and governance spheres.
The forthcoming election in the US has been one that has pressured candidates to take stances on tech-related topics such as cryptocurrencies, blockchain and AI.
Such stances are being watched carefully by both Big Tech firms and relevant political action committees which have gained traction over the last year.
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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
