As the UK heads into elections next month, the country is seeing a new type of politician for the first time: an AI candidate. AI Steve, a real-life avatar of Steven Endacott, a Brighton-based businessman, is running for Parliament as an independent.
Voters will be able to cast their vote for AI Steve, as well as request policy positions or raise their own issues. AI Steve will then incorporate suggestions and requests into its platform.
Endacott will be the personal representative attending meetings and parliamentary sessions on behalf of AI Steve. He says that he sees AI Steve as a way to enable a more direct form of democracy. “I think we are actually reinventing politics using AI as a technological foundation, as a co-pilot, not to replace politicians but to really connect them with their audience, their electorate,” Endacott says.
Currently, AI Steve is mistakenly listed on the ballot as Steve AI, something Endacott is working to correct.
AI Steve was designed by Neural Voice, an AI voice company of which Endacott is president. According to Jeremy Smith, co-founder of the company, AI Steve can have up to 10,000 conversations at a time. “A key element is creating your own database of information,” says Smith. “And how to inject customer data into it.”
The idea for AI Steve came from Endacott’s own frustration trying to enter 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 says. “The only way to do it is to stop talking to the outside, get in the store and start changing the policy.” When Endacott tried to run for office in the past, he said he felt it was about partisan maneuvering and worrying about which seats or districts were “safe” rather than responding to the needs of real people.
AI Steve, he says, will be different. AI Steve will transcribe and analyze conversations you have with voters and present policy issues to “validators,” or ordinary people who can indicate whether they care about an issue or want a certain policy implemented.
Endacott says his team plans to reach out to commuters at the Brighton train stop, about an hour outside of London, by asking them to complete short email policy surveys on their journeys to or from the city to help fulfill this role.
“It makes sense to me to have a validator voting system to check those policies and make sure they’re common sense, and also have the control to say, ‘In Parliament, we want you to vote this way,'” Endacott says. .
AI Steve has only been active for about a day, but Endacott and Smith say the main concerns expressed by people who have contacted AI Steve have been about the conflict in Palestine and local issues such as garbage collection.
While Endacott says he expects his own opinions or political preferences may differ from AI Steve’s at some point, he says he is committed to voting in accordance with constituent preferences expressed through AI Steve.
“Surely in a democracy, it’s what their voters want,” he says. “I know it sounds very obvious that a politician should be told what to do by his constituents. And if you don’t like him, bad luck. He gets off work.”