[HN Gopher] AI bot running for mayor in Wyoming (sort of)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       AI bot running for mayor in Wyoming (sort of)
        
       Author : sabrina_ramonov
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2024-06-18 21:38 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
        
       | pocketarc wrote:
       | This is the sort of low-effort thing that makes people roll their
       | eyes at AI. A simple GPT chatbot? That's it? It's not even some
       | sort of orchestration system akin to Devin and the like, where it
       | can do/process stuff as an independent agent (which, regardless
       | of success rate, is far more complicated)?
       | 
       | There's... nothing impressive about it at all (I guess the
       | impressive part is "man successfully captures media attention,
       | gets everyone talking about him" - that is an actual challenge,
       | and props to him).
       | 
       | It's also a bit rich to think "this is smarter than me, and so it
       | is definitely smarter than some of the politicians out there". It
       | just smacks of someone who has no idea what political work
       | involves, and thinks a chatbot that can recite legal jargon is
       | literally all it takes to be a politician.
       | 
       | "oh this chatbot can recite all the documentation for all these
       | different libraries, it's way smarter than some developers I've
       | seen"
        
         | thatmiddleway wrote:
         | For people on HN, we know it's definitely low effort. For the
         | general population though? Might be enough to get votes.
        
         | mikestew wrote:
         | _It just smacks of someone who has no idea what political work
         | involves..._
         | 
         | It also smacks of someone who might be vastly overestimating
         | themselves. There might be a lot of things out there smarter
         | than him, including every other politician, so let's not jump
         | to conclusions _just_ yet.
        
         | StableAlkyne wrote:
         | > It's also a bit rich to think...it is definitely smarter than
         | some of the politicians out there
         | 
         | To be fair, there are some pretty awful politicians out there
        
         | vasco wrote:
         | Being low effort doesn't mean it's not better than the average
         | politician. It also looks more like a protest than an actual
         | candidacy, but specially if elected it would be interesting to
         | see how he'd vote.
        
         | CognitiveLens wrote:
         | I read the first part of your post assuming you were being
         | sarcastic about people's expectations that every mention of AI
         | must be about a revolutionary technical advance rather than
         | novel applications of existing tech. But I think you're serious
         | - the news isn't "AI has made a big advance", the news is
         | "people are testing the idea that AI might be better at policy
         | decisions than some humans" - and that's interesting.
         | 
         | There is a lot of evidence that many politicians don't have
         | even a ChatGPT-level grasp of public policy, the legal system,
         | or economics, but make up for it by being charming, personable,
         | or subjectively "inspiring". It's fascinating to think about
         | what a GPT would do with all the information that politicians
         | have to work with, and whether that could actually result in
         | more effective political decision making.
         | 
         | Yes, letting ChatGPT call the shots doesn't solve the problem
         | of actually _getting things done_, but that doesn't trivialize
         | the effort to elect a "human being enacting ChatGPT
         | instructions".
         | 
         | As a side note, I smile at the idea that a GPT chatbot is a
         | "simple" thing - how quickly we become inured to incredibly
         | complex technology dressed up to be easily consumable.
        
       | arvindh-manian wrote:
       | Reminds me of the various animals that have been elected to
       | office [1].
       | 
       | [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
       | human_electoral_candidates
        
       | acl777 wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/U2LyC
        
       | sg47 wrote:
       | It should be fine-tuned on everything Tommy Carcetti said
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-06-18 23:00 UTC)