Political analyst Matthew Baum can understand the allure of an AI-powered candidate for office — but he warns that kind of ultimate political outsider could pose some unexpected threats.
We got the Harvard professor Friday on , where he weighed in on the growing trend of AI candidates running for political offices across the globe.
For example, entrepreneur Steve Endacott is having his AI-generated avatar run for a seat in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom.
Similarly, Victor Miller is running for Mayor in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and promising he’ll use AI to run the show, if elected.
As Matthew put it … he can see why voters would seriously consider an AI candidate, noting people have been rooting for political outsiders for some time.
He added … “It’s classic American politics to want outsiders and non-professional politicians and people that have no links at all to politics to get into office and fix our broken system. We’ve been hearing that sort of trope for as long as we’ve had politics in the United States. It’s in our DNA.”
Though, Matthew suggested the technology is not quite ready to take on leadership roles … warning there are some real limitations still facing AI.
He added … “The reality is that generative AI models are only as good as the [data] underlying them. There are all kinds of potential problems there.”
Matthew claimed this could result in misinformation … noting we’d need sentient life forms to differentiate between accurate and false info.
His bottom line is clear — an AI candidate may be exactly what the people are looking for, but it’s just not a realistic option. Not yet.
