AI Bot Stands in for Absent Candidate in Virginia Congressional Debate

Virginia Congressional Candidates Debate Incumbent's AI - With a Few Glitches

(Reuters) - An online debate held on Thursday against a sitting congressman's artificial intelligence likeness - marking a gray area in the use of the technology during elections - featured few fireworks, few viewers and a few glitches. The debate, pitting two independent challengers against incumbent Don Beyer, a Democrat, was streamed on YouTube and Rumble. As Reuters first reported, challenger Bentley Hensel created an AI version of Beyer using his website and other materials to answer questions of policy so that he could debate it whether Beyer appeared or no. Beyer, who eschewed the hour-long event, was represented by a robot icon above the word "DonBot" which read answers with a robotic voice that did not mimic the congressman's. Hensel and David Kennedy both appeared on camera, as well as representatives from the debate's sponsors. Republican Jerry Torres was not present. Beyer, who captured nearly three-fourths of the vote in 2022, is expected to win re-election handily. Hensel previously told Reuters he designed the software to answer accurately based on source materials and not skew the responses to benefit the challengers. The candidates fielded questions around gun control, limiting aide to Israel and healthcare access, among others. Asked why voters should reelect Beyer, the AI said: "My answer is simple: I believe that I can make a real difference in the lives of the people of Virginia's 8th district." The software said it would oppose withholding all aide and weapons shipments to Israel in lieu of establishing a Palestinian state, if that were proposed. Beyer himself voted against additional aide to Israel in April saying the nation is wealthy and can borrow funds. "I support humanitarian assistance and have voted in the past to fund defensive capabilities," he said. A spokesperson for Beyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment left after business hours. Viewership for the debate on YouTube peaked at less than 20 viewers and DonBot was inaudible for portions of some answers, making it more stunt than consequential. Still, observers say the use of AI is likely to become more commonplace in future elections, particularly if legislators fail to pass meaningful laws on its use. (Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Virginia congressional candidates debate incumbent's AI - with a few glitches

(Reuters) - An online debate held on Thursday against a sitting congressman's artificial intelligence likeness - marking a gray area in the use of the technology during elections - featured few fireworks, few viewers and a few glitches. The debate, pitting two independent challengers against incumbent Don Beyer, a Democrat, was streamed on YouTube and Rumble. As Reuters first reported, challenger Bentley Hensel created an AI version of Beyer using his website and other materials to answer questions of policy so that he could debate it whether Beyer appeared or no. Beyer, who eschewed the hour-long event, was represented by a robot icon above the word "DonBot" which read answers with a robotic voice that did not mimic the congressman's. Hensel and David Kennedy both appeared on camera, as well as representatives from the debate's sponsors. Republican Jerry Torres was not present. Beyer, who captured nearly three-fourths of the vote in 2022, is expected to win re-election handily. Hensel previously told Reuters he designed the software to answer accurately based on source materials and not skew the responses to benefit the challengers. The candidates fielded questions around gun control, limiting aide to Israel and healthcare access, among others. Asked why voters should reelect Beyer, the AI said: "My answer is simple: I believe that I can make a real difference in the lives of the people of Virginia's 8th district." The software said it would oppose withholding all aide and weapons shipments to Israel in lieu of establishing a Palestinian state, if that were proposed. Beyer himself voted against additional aide to Israel in April saying the nation is wealthy and can borrow funds. "I support humanitarian assistance and have voted in the past to fund defensive capabilities," he said. A spokesperson for Beyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment left after business hours. Viewership for the debate on YouTube peaked at less than 20 viewers and DonBot was inaudible for portions of some answers, making it more stunt than consequential. Still, observers say the use of AI is likely to become more commonplace in future elections, particularly if legislators fail to pass meaningful laws on its use. (Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Virginia congressional candidates debate incumbent's AI - with a few glitches

Oct 17 (Reuters) - An online debate held on Thursday against a sitting congressman's artificial intelligence likeness - marking a gray area in the use of the technology during elections - featured few fireworks, few viewers and a few glitches. The debate, pitting two independent challengers against incumbent Don Beyer, a Democrat, was streamed on YouTube and Rumble. As Reuters first reported, challenger Bentley Hensel created an AI version of Beyer using his website and other materials to answer questions of policy so that he could debate it whether Beyer appeared or no. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Beyer, who eschewed the hour-long event, was represented by a robot icon above the word "DonBot" which read answers with a robotic voice that did not mimic the congressman's. Hensel and David Kennedy both appeared on camera, as well as representatives from the debate's sponsors. Republican Jerry Torres was not present. Beyer, who captured nearly three-fourths of the vote in 2022, is expected to win re-election handily. Hensel previously told Reuters he designed the software to answer accurately based on source materials and not skew the responses to benefit the challengers. Advertisement · Scroll to continue The candidates fielded questions around gun control, limiting aide to Israel and healthcare access, among others. Asked why voters should reelect Beyer, the AI said: "My answer is simple: I believe that I can make a real difference in the lives of the people of Virginia's 8th district." The software said it would oppose withholding all aide and weapons shipments to Israel in lieu of establishing a Palestinian state, if that were proposed. Beyer himself voted against additional aide to Israel in April saying the nation is wealthy and can borrow funds. "I support humanitarian assistance and have voted in the past to fund defensive capabilities," he said. A spokesperson for Beyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment left after business hours. Viewership for the debate on YouTube peaked at less than 20 viewers and DonBot was inaudible for portions of some answers, making it more stunt than consequential. Still, observers say the use of AI is likely to become more commonplace in future elections, particularly if legislators fail to pass meaningful laws on its use. Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Stephen Coates Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Greg Bensinger Thomson Reuters Greg Bensinger joined Reuters as a technology correspondent in 2022 focusing on the world's largest technology companies. He was previously a member of The New York Times editorial board and a technology beat reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He also worked for Bloomberg News writing about the auto and telecommunications industries. He studied English literature at The University of Virginia and graduate journalism at Columbia University. Greg lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.

Virginia Congressional Race Features Debate With Incumbent's AI

An online debate held on Thursday against a sitting congressman's artificial intelligence likeness -- marking a gray area in the use of the technology during elections -- featured few fireworks, few viewers and a few glitches. The debate, pitting two independent challengers against incumbent Don Beyer, a Democrat, was streamed on YouTube and Rumble. As Reuters first reported, challenger Bentley Hensel created an AI version of Beyer using his website and other materials to answer questions of policy so that he could debate it whether Beyer appeared or no.

AI-powered bot stands in for absent candidate in Virginia debate

Artificial intelligence can't hide from politics, or rather politics can't hide from AI. In an unusual political move, Bentley Hensel, an independent candidate running for United States Congress in Virginia's 8th District, leveraged an AI-powered bot to participate in a debate after the district's incumbent, Don Beyer, declined an invitation. On Oct. 17, a debate was held between Hensel, another independent candidate, David Kennedy, and the virtual stand-in, DonBot, in the lead-up to the 2024 November elections. AI-powered debate Hensel, a software engineer by trade, said he turned to AI as a response to what he described as Beyer's unwillingness to engage in a public debate. The bot was given a crash course on Beyer's policy views and trained to represent his policy positions by drawing on available data sources, including his publicly available statements, press releases and campaign material. DonBot was initially built by Hensel using OpenAI's technology, but prior to the debate, Hensel said he migrated the bot off of Openai and onto "open-source" models via Cloudflare Workers. OpenAI banned Hensel's account due to his political uses. Hensel said in the future he plans to create a Trump and Harris bot debate, "where anyone can ask both candidates their opinion(s) on any issue." Related: US has 26M strong 'crypto voting bloc' ahead of elections -- Survey The debate between the independent Virginia Congress candidates was streamed online and was met with multiple hiccups, including the DonBot not being audible during some answers. Supporting AI regulation Hensel, along with the bot-ifyed Beyer have both been vocal about their stance on tech and innovation -- a trend among politicians up for election. On his personal website, Hensel describes his mission as one to introduce "technological innovation and transparency to the federal government" so that it is effective for all citizens. During his time in office, Beyer has already proposed legislation to regulate AI security for risk incident mitigation. In his proposition, he urged Congress to establish clear boundaries around its deployment, particularly in political and governance spheres. The forthcoming election in the US has been one that has pressured candidates to take stances on tech-related topics such as cryptocurrencies, blockchain and AI. Such stances are being watched carefully by both Big Tech firms and relevant political action committees which have gained traction over the last year.

Two Virginia congressional candidates debated an AI chatbot. It was weirdly normal

On Thursday night an AI chatbot participated in a political debate with candidates for a congressional seat, and, despite a few technical glitches, performed well. There was no robot voice, no off-topic tangents, no personal attacks, no odd "they're eating the dogs" hallucinations. The chatbot was a stand-in for the man currently holding the seath for Virginia's 8th congressional district, Rep. Don Beyer, who declined an invitation to debate. "DonBot," as it's called, was created (without Beyer's permission) by a longshot independent challenger for the seat, Bentley Hensel, a software engineer by trade. Hensel says he trained the bot only on Beyer's official websites, press releases, and Federal Election Commission data; it received no special training on political debate, such as transcripts from other debates. But it needed no special training, it turns out. Wednesday's debate, which was live streamed on YouTube, was tame by the standard set by other political debates this year. It was more like a multi-candidate, robot-friendly Town Hall than a head-to-head clash. There was no cross talk or extemporaneous back-and-forth. The candidates -- Hensel, independent David Kennedy, and DonBot -- listened quietly to the others' two-minute answers, and sometimes voiced agreement. The only remarkable facial expression of the evening came as DonBot began its first answer: Hensel closed his eyes and half-smiled in what looked like a slight cringe. But in the end DonBot's performance wasn't cringe-worthy. While its voice sounded nothing like Beyer's, it represented Beyer's positions faithfully, even leveraged the five-term incumbent's experience representing Virginia in DC.