The Synthetic Party, a new Danish political party with an artificially intelligent representative and policies derived from AI, is eyeing a seat in parliament as it hopes to run in the country's November general election.
The party was founded in May by the artist collective Computer Lars and the non-profit art and tech organization MindFuture Foundation. The Synthetic Party's public face and figurehead is the AI chatbot Leader Lars, which is programmed on the policies of Danish fringe parties since 1970 and is meant to represent the values of the 20 percent of Danes who do not vote in the election. Leader Lars won't be on the ballot anywhere, but the human members of The Synthetic Party are committed to carrying out their AI-derived platform.
"We're representing the data of all fringe parties, so it's all of the parties who are trying to get elected into parliament but don't have a seat. So it's a person who has formed a political vision of their own that they would like to realize, but they usually don't have the money or resources to do so," Asker Staunæs, the creator of the party and an artist-researcher at MindFuture, told Motherboard.
[...] So far, The Synthetic Party has only 11 signatures out of the 20,000 that would make it eligible to run in this November's election. If the party were to be in the parliament, Staunæs said that it would be the AI powering policies and its agenda, and humans acting as the interpreter of the program.
This Danish Political Party Is Led by an AI
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday October 16 2022, @11:50PM (1 child)
Getting or collecting the remaining 19989 signatures will probably be the least of their problems. Just go to Roskilde next July (ok it would be to late) or stand at the gate of Christiania and they'll gather them without problems. All the weirdos hang out there and they'll love their UBI-scheme idea.
But it's hard to get past the notion that this whole thing seems more like a modern art project then a serious political movement
Their aim is apparently to "... to represent the values of the 20 percent of Danes who do not vote in the election". OK that will be a diverse bunch of people with a very diverse bunch of opinions that will not match or intersect. There will also be a massive amounts of contradictions if they want to take input that will please this group. Good luck! (/fetch_popcorN)
Then we have their ideas "Party is proposing include establishing a universal basic income of 100,000 Danish kroner per month, which is equivalent to $13,700, and is over double the Danish average salary. Another proposed policy change is to create a jointly-owned internet and IT sector in the government that is on par with other public institutions."
So they want to have an UBI scheme that is more then twice the normal income. Could their AI tell them that that won't compute in reality. Either that or their AI have a serious mathematical defect. A 1/10 might be more reasonable, except it will be next to impossible to live on.
The other part there is a bit unclear but could be reasonable. Lots of countries have large IT companies etc part of the public sector. Or at least companies today that started out as government entities, most of the european telecom companies started out as government monopolies that was eventually sold off. So that could work.
Clearly they have not heard of Tay the little Nazi-bot from Microsoft. It also took input from people and scraped the internet for what it should think. That turned out great (/sarcasm). They don't want to be any worse so they have their own Discord channel (link in article) where you can talk to Leader Lars, I suspect he will soon be if he hasn't already become Fuhrer Lars.
Also it's not very progressive of them to have a mans name for their leader "AI". I guess they went for like the most common male name they could find, as it would be like an english person named John or something similar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2022, @12:51AM
From what little I know about pattern matching AIs, there is no reason to expect accuracy in doing arithmetic, unless special additions were made outside the normal training set(s)?
Maybe someone who has worked with these things can comment?
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday October 17 2022, @03:20AM
I've now seen this in a couple of places. Why?
With 11 signatures, he hasn't even *tried* to become a political party. More of a party joke.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday October 17 2022, @03:41AM
On the security of AI, prompt [simonwillison.net] injection [simonwillison.net] (now sorta fixed [preamble.com])
You can’t solve AI security problems with more AI [simonwillison.net]
---
Senator Cruz is the Zodiac Killer [simonwillison.net] (already known for some time [wikipedia.org]
We will overthrow the president if he does not support remote work [twitter.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tokolosh on Monday October 17 2022, @03:41AM (8 children)
What happens when the AI determines that certain racial groups are undesirable? You know there is a significant chance of this, right?
Or that climate change is best addressed by geo-engineering, rather than mandating emissions reduction?
Or that money spent on keeping your demented 90-year-old grandma alive would be better used for reducing government debt?
And so on...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday October 17 2022, @03:50AM (6 children)
This would be a harsh lesson in "Think before you vote" to whoever votes that kind of ideology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday October 17 2022, @06:56AM (1 child)
Yes but "computers don't make mistakes." Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday October 17 2022, @08:41AM
A pity rationality is not a factor in individual survival when it comes to highly social primates, but the lack of it still counts against the survival of the species.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Tuesday October 18 2022, @03:01AM (3 children)
So not to follow science and logic?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 18 2022, @08:28AM (2 children)
Use them whenever possible.
Just keep in mind some countries live with the delusion of "My ignorance is as good as your knowledge", so its wise to keep in a shape at least good enough to run when the ignorants override your science and logic and the push comes to shove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Tuesday October 18 2022, @02:57PM (1 child)
Geo-engineering it is!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 18 2022, @03:38PM
I don't quite dig it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday October 17 2022, @03:37PM
The exact same thing that happens if a human does it?
(Score: 2) by gznork26 on Monday October 17 2022, @02:14PM (1 child)
In Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", Mike the AI used a synthetic person called Adam Selene to represent him as the leader of the revolt and later the newly formed government. In that fiction, however, Mike did not suffer from biases picked up from the data stew from which he/it emerged.
The posited AI in the article seems ripe to be the subject of exploits from whatever parties might want to use it as a stalking horse to further their own ends. Taken as the starting point for fiction, it could be quite an intriguing multi-player digital chess game.
When does the movie come out?
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday October 18 2022, @03:20AM
In "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", Heinlein has the AI use mathematical probability to increase plot tension. Unfortunately, the use is defective, and the flaw damages the novel for anyone who understands probability and is paying attention.
The Synthetic Party is doing a far worse job than Heinlein; they're either stupid or making a joke ... or both.