The year of the AI election that wasn’t

More than 30 tech companies have pitched AI tools to political campaigns for November’s election – the campaigns have been wary. — Sam Wood/The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO: Matthew Diemer, a Democrat running for election in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, was approached in January with a pitch by artificial intelligence company Civox: AI-backed voice technology that could make tens of thousands of personalised phone calls to voters using Diemer’s talking points and sense of humour.

His campaign agreed to try out the technology. But it turned out that the only thing voters hated more than a robocall was an AI-backed one.