A Wellington, New Zealand-based technology group has unveiled a pilot digital platform: \u2018SAM \u2013 the Virtual Politician\u2019 at the launch of the\u00a0 Wellington CIT.AI chapter, part of a global network of cities showcasing their artificial intelligence (AI) capability and talent.
\nThe group\u2019s spokesperson Nick Gerritsen, said the group aimed to test whether the ways in which people engage with politics and debate the big issues could be improved.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re asking whether an AI politician could provide the facts rather than push a party line,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe it\u2019s time to consider whether technology, and in this case AI, can help us get better information to inform decision-making on the major issues like water quality, housing, or climate change. We need better outcomes.\u201d
\nGerritsen said the current political system was reliant on politicians staying on top of all the major issues, being well-informed and coming up with good decisions. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen in the US, UK, and Spain recently, however, that politicians may be wildly out of touch with what people actually think and want. Perhaps it\u2019s time to see whether technology can produce better results for the people than politicians.\u201d
\nAccording to Gerritsen, the technology proposed would be better than traditional polling because it would be akin to having a continuous conversation, and could give the \u2018silent majority\u2019 a voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cNatural language processing technology and sentiment analysis algorithms have come a long way in recent times and are now at the level where they have practical application in day-to-day interactions with people,\u201d Gerritsen said.
\nInitially, the project will conduct research into whether people would engage with a virtual politician and then move on to the viability of building the software. If it proves to be viable the aim would be to have the virtual politician up and running for the next general election.
\nGerritsen said the group wanted to have a positive impact on political discussion and democracy and did not have a political agenda or bias as such.
\n\u201cWe might be surprised at the outcome. And that might be a good thing if it\u2019s more in tune with the voting public. The technology will enable greater people power,\u201d he said.
\nRead the source article at Computerworld New Zealand.
\nSource: AI Trends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Wellington, New Zealand-based technology group has unveiled a pilot digital platform: \u2018SAM \u2013 the Virtual Politician\u2019 at…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[811],"tags":[812],"class_list":{"0":"post-3590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai"},"yoast_head":"\n