An AI candidate is running for parliament in the UK election
- An AI candidate is standing for election as an MP in the upcoming UK general election
- AI Steve is a bot designed by businessman Steve Endacott
- If elected, Endacott would physically vote in Parliament based on decisions made by the bot
Published on Jun 18, 2024 at 11:25 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Jun 18, 2024 at 5:32 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
An AI candidate is standing for election as an MP in this year’s UK general election.
Yep, while it may sound a little like the storyline from The Waldo Moment episode of Black Mirror – the human being behind the AI candidate, Steve Endacott, says he is ‘reinventing democracy’.
Known as AI Steve, the bot uses Endacott’s actual voice and an avatar that looks pretty similar to him.
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How will AI Steve work?
AI Steve, which was designed by Endacott’s firm Neural Voice, will run to be an MP in Brighton on July 4.
Endacott told the Independent that he will simply be a human vessel for his digital counterpart, and will vote on policies decided by the bot, which in turn makes its decisions based on what the constituents of Brighton say.
If elected, Endacott’s party would recruit locals to create policies (known as Creators), these policies are then voted on by voluntarily ‘Validators’ from the local community.
Policies that score higher than 50 percent would be adopted.
He told the publication: “I will do the physical voting but I will be directed entirely by my constituents via AI Steve.
“I’m just a bit of a numpty being told what to do.
“That is the whole idea of democracy. You have to put away your own personal politics, your own ego and actually do what your constituents want, which is quite radical in politics.”
“We’re talking about reinventing democracy here.”
Endacott admits that AI ‘can’t replace MPs’ but insists the tech can be used as a tool so MPs can better represent their communities.
And he’s perhaps not wrong, artificial intelligence is being used to help out with all manner of things from predicting the Earth’s future to piloting planes.
Endacott has previously ran as a Conservative councillor in Rochdale in 2022, but picked up just 487 votes.
He says that brush with politics left him feeling disillusioned and hence he came upon the idea of AI Steve.
He went on: “We’re talking about reinventing democracy here, reconnecting voters directly back to their MPs so they can actually tell them what they want from the comfort of their own home.
“The difficulty is a lot of people react against it before they have read it and just think Skynet [the artificial intelligence that created the Terminator].
“There is supposed to be a Black Mirror episode that is similar – but I haven’t seen it.”
I have and it’s excellent – I think you should check it out, Human Steve.
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Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Across her career she's covered a wide variety of topics, including celebrity, cryptocurrency, politics, true crime and just about everything in between.
