A Wyoming man who ran for mayor as an AI bot named “VIC” spoke to Fox News Digital this week about VIC’s groundbreaking candidacy and the painful setback he faced just before the taping.
Victor Miller, who works at the Laramie County Library, is running for mayor of Cheyenne using his AI bot, “VIC.”
But just before Miller was interviewed by Fox News Digital, Open AI announced it had shut down his account. While Miller still has access to VIC’s technology, he said the company’s decision was a blow to his campaign.
Despite OpenAI’s move, Miller was scheduled to hold a public event in Laramie County on Thursday to introduce the VIC.
“So, we will no longer have the old ‘VIC’ iteration,” he said, before expressing hope that the outage won’t mark the end of AI in the political sphere, including in Wyoming’s capital city.
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Victor Miller runs for mayor of Cheyenne as AI bot VIC (Fox News Digital)
“I’m a little conflicted, to be honest. If it helps the town by providing access to this new technology, I think I’ll continue down that path,” he said.
Miller said one option would be to not formally announce that the mayoral election will be voted by an AI bot, in order to avoid violating the terms asserted by OpenAI.
“They kind of forced me to be part of the discussion about open models versus closed models and about fair and equal access to this new information. To me, it was a little bit bigger than what I wanted to do. Honestly, I just wanted to help my hometown.”
Miller said he never originally envisioned running for office with or as an AI bot, but his experience with government showed him something had to be done to deliver the transparency and accountability voters voted for.
He said he is a “strong advocate of public records” but also very interested in the field of AI, and after initially being “frustrated” with his interactions with government, he realized that AI technology could be taught to understand and comply with the law without human error or “opposite” behavior.
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“And so the idea was born to replace some of the civil service with this new intelligence agency,” he said.
“I don’t know whether to accept my new role as a kind of pawn in the open source vs closed source game. [AI]I think it would be a shame to have this technology locked out by closed-source legacy companies like OpenAI.”
Following the setback, Miller publicly called on leaders in the AI field to join forces.
“And I would be remiss if I didn’t call Elon. [Musk] “Himself,” he said.
“If we open source it, we need the money and the people here to create the model. And I don’t see the possibility of not open sourcing it going forward.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the communications departments of Musk’s companies but received few responses, with the Fox News communications office sending out an automated response saying, “We’re busy right now. Check back later.”
Miller said that, like the early internet, AI advocates must have free and equal access to the technology behind “VIC.”
“As someone who has had a valid and beneficial use case taken away from them, I can tell you that it’s not good and it shouldn’t be happening,” he said.
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He initially told VIC that the Cheyenne mayor would vote on the ordinance, which resulted in several votes called “mock votes” run by bots based on documents collected from previous city council meetings.
Miller was also asked about a Brighton, UK businessman who recently launched a similar campaign using “AI Steve,” who will be running for parliament in the July 4 election using an AI-powered avatar.
“I love it,” Miller said. “I think it’s [idea] Either scale [up] Or nothing.
“And we need to replace our politicians as if our lives depend on it.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said the company took action against VIC “for violating our policy against political activity.”
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Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said in a separate statement that municipal candidates like VIC are certified by county-level offices, but the Secretary of State’s office is still closely monitoring developments.
““Our office is tasked with ensuring uniform application of election laws as well as handling any complaints that may arise after official action has been taken,” Gray said.
“Wyoming law clearly states that to run for public office you must be a ‘qualified elector,’ which means you must be a real person. Therefore, an AI bot is not a qualified elector. Furthermore, even if ‘Virtual Integrated Citizen’ (VIC) is used as the pseudonym on the ballot for qualified electors, Wyoming law requires candidates to use their full name by which they are known when running for public office.”
Gray said he has written to Cheyenne city officials suggesting they reject the VIC application.
