AI Running for Office - Fiction Becomes Reality

A colleague shared a personally fascinating article with me today:

https://nypost.com/2024/06/12/us-news/ai-powered-candidate-running-for-mayor-in-wyoming/

Why is it so personally satisfying?

Because two years ago, I wrote a novel on the same exact topic.

https://www.amazon.com/CampAIgn-Craig-W-Turner/dp/B09PP56Z9S/ref=sr_1_1

Now, I didn't know at the time that:

(a) OpenAI was going to drop ChatGPT on the world and give AI to everyone about 18 months later

(b) My company was going to take on AI training and programming, and launch an AI platform for chambers of commerce

(c) I'd be presenting and keynoting at conferences on AI for chambers, small business and professional services.

But, I was fascinated with the concept of AI running for office...

Not from the "take over the world", Terminator perspective, but from how humans would actually respond to it.

It was a different kind of AI story I told - one that I'm very proud of.

Especially because now, it appears, it will be playing out in real life.

I was laughing reading the Post article, because the questions that the AI's "handler", Victor Miller , was answering were the same ones that my characters answered in THE CAMPaiGN.

I will tell you... I give Victor all kinds of credit.

What's nice about being a fiction author is that when I have ideas that I have zero intention of making reality... I can throw them into a storyline.

One of my favorite examples is coffee shops.

I love creating names for coffee shops (e.g. Bean There, Done That).

But, I'm never going to open a coffee shop.

So, if you read my books, my characters have lots of coffee shop meetings at cleverly-named coffee shops.

Because I want to put them into the world in a less-expensive, less-intensive way than starting a whole new retail business.

It's a nice perk of being an author, who also has WAY too many business ideas.

When it comes to running an AI candidate for office, though?

Nope. That's not me.

I'll just write about it.

Eventually, someone was going to push this idea forward, and now we have it happening, thanks to Victor.

Very cool.

I will be watching closely to see how well I predicted how things would roll out.

***

Interestingly enough, I actually have about part two of a THE CAMPaiGN trilogy already written (before I abandoned it to write JERSEY SHORE PICKPOCKETS).

Perhaps, at this point, I'll need to revisit that second book, and pick up where I left off. :)