AI Candidate, YouTube Prankster Run in UK Election

With an artificial intelligence-powered candidate running for Parliament and a YouTube prankster allegedly registered in multiple constituencies, technology is emerging as a surreal disruptor in the UK elections.

AI Steve, an artificial intelligence-powered candidate is running for the UK Parliament, and if elected, will use the technology to make policy decisions, according to a report by Wired.

The candidate is backed by a UK-based businessman Steven Endacott who says he will represent AI Steve in meetings and parliamentary sessions. But the policy decisions will be made by AI, based on “suggestions and requests” shared by voters, the report said.

The candidate, designed by AI firm Neural Voice, can have up to 10,000 conversations at once. Endacott told Wired he believed that a candidate like AI Steve will “allow for a more direct form of democracy.“

Meanwhile, AI Steve is not the only oddball candidate that will feature in UK elections. The BBC reported on Wednesday that a YouTube prankster named Niko Omilana seems to have succeeded in gaining registration as an independent candidate in at least 11 UK constituencies.

Two of those constituencies are also being contested by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

“I am running for prime minister,” Omilana said in a post on X.

“We attempted to run Niko Omilana in multiple places across the country and somehow we managed to make it happen,” he added in an accompanying video.

Omilana was previously in the headlines three years ago for running the London mayoral election. He polled 50,000 votes and was the most successful independent candidate.

Meanwhile, the BBC report said officials were looking into possible fraud in Omilana’s candidature process.

Read the full reports: Wired; BBC

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Vishakha Saxena

Vishakha Saxena is the Multimedia and Social Media Editor at Asia Financial. She has worked as a digital journalist since 2013, and is an experienced writer and multimedia producer. As a trader and investor, she is keenly interested in new economy, emerging markets and the intersections of finance and society. You can write to her at [email protected]