Dissatisfied with the current candidates? Soon, we could choose an AI president
Someone will build and run an AI candidate for president by mid-century, and we should begin considering the implications now.
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have captured the public’s attention. Legislatures worldwide are grappling with how to regulate AI, and policymakers are concerned about deepfake technology influencing the 2024 elections.
We already have the technology to generate something that writes, sounds and looks like a human candidate. Lifelike deepfake technology is proliferating and offered by platforms including DeepFace Lab, FaceSwap, DeepSwap.ai, Synthesia, WOMBO, Avatarify, and many more. Meta has already created more than 100 celebrity AI chatbots. Hellohistory.ai has already created over 400 unique historical characters with which (whom?) you can chat.
Expert estimates for the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), sometimes called “Strong AI,” vary widely. Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, believes a “human level” AI could be built in two to three years. Google DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg thinks there is a 50% chance AGI will be developed by 2028. OpenAI
CEO Sam Altman has a similar four to five-year estimate. Surveys of AI experts are more conservative, anticipating AGI in decades, not years. Whatever we think of these estimates, we can assume
that it will happen in the 21st century. Consider that computing capacity has gone from something housed in a building in the 1950s to something in your phone today, a process taking only 70 years.
Any former president with a presidential library could be digitally reincarnated.
An enterprising team of political consultants and software engineers can already create a compelling digital candidate by combining deepfake technology and a large language model. An LLM could be used to create something that would “think,” write, respond, and sound like any public figure with a large volume of speeches and writing.
Some may be reading this and thinking about Max Headroom of 1980s fame. But it would be far easier to train an LLM on
a historically successful politician with decades of speeches, years of personal correspondence and many biographers. Any former president with a presidential library could be digitally reincarnated. Even Abraham Lincoln has decades of recorded speeches and correspondence, and he has been the subject of over 16,000 books and articles. When paired with deepfake technology, these LLMs would create captivating educational content and be used as tutors for AGI candidates.
A darker, dystopian scenario is that bad actors would combine these technologies in the 2024 elections to mimic and discredit existing candidates. It is easy to imagine a nefarious team building dozens of AI-generated candidate imposter videos in an attempt to flood the internet with realistic but completely fabricated, deepfake content.
Given all this, it’s not to hard to imagine that someone will build and run an AI candidate for president, perhaps even openly, though that comes with challenges. Getting on the ballot without a birthdate might be difficult, at least one that meets the age requirement. Early attempts could involve a citizen running for office, and promising to defer all communication and decisions to the AI candidate. This may all sound absurd in our current moment, but in time, I expect AI agents will become our personal assistants, 24-7 doctors, therapists and possibly companions. Replika, an early AI companion, was launched in 2017. AI companion startups like Character.
AI, Nomi.ai, Kindroid and Anima are the newest competitors in the growing market.
Ultimately, social adoption will depend on the ability to overcome the Frankenstein mythos. Ever since Mary Shelley penned her novel in 1818, the West has feared that it will make a thing and that thing will destroy us. But what if we make a thing that helps us?
In the 21st century, we will de-extinct several species, including the woolly mammoth. We will also use AI to digitally resurrect historical leaders. Lincoln 2.0 is on the way. It’s only a matter of time.