Tokyo
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After years of threatening to overturn industries around the world, artificial intelligence could quickly enter the corridor of power if Japan’s fringe party went its path.
Plans have been announced to install Chatbot Penguins as “AI Leaders” after playing Party Pass to Play earlier this week to disappoint the election results.
Human candidate Okumura Koki won the subsequent leadership race, but the doctoral student specializing in AI research announced at a press conference earlier this week that he had other plans.
“The new leader will be AI,” the 25-year-old Kyoto University student declared that he described himself as his assistant.
“The party will leave decision-making to AI.”
According to Okumura, the new appearance takes the shape of an avatar penguin. However, the election law requires candidates to be Japanese citizens, so they do not throw hats into the ring for election.
“Legally, representatives must be natural, so officially humans will serve as representatives,” he said.
He told CNN he assumes that AI will ultimately take over all decision-making processes related to party activities.
“We believe that it can achieve things more accurately than humans. This approach can carefully consider the voices humans often overlook, creating a more inclusive and humane environment for political participation,” Oki mura said.
According to Okumura, there is no ascension timeline for the role of AI. The penguin’s appearance has not been revealed either.
The party, founded on the belief that anyone interested in politics should take a shot, was launched in January by Shinji ishimaru, the former mayor of Akitakata, a city of almost 26,000 people in the western Japan.
Ishida gained fame after finishing second in Tokyo’s gubernatorial election last year thanks to the success of his online campaign. However, he left party leadership in August after failing to secure a seat in either the capital’s local council election or the national Senate election earlier this year. In total, I ran over 50 seats.
Programmed political penguins may not have that in mind, but the Japanese government has strengthened its willingness to encourage the use of AI in recent years. Experts say it is key to alleviating the shrinking workforce of aging countries.
Some government departments have embraced AI technology to support aspects of work, from administrative duties to matchmaking and abandoned home detection, but not to the extent that Okumura is proposing to his party.
The observer has expressed reservations about Okumura’s plans and says it may be difficult to take off, like a real Penguin.
White Island, a political science professor at Josei University in Tokyo, said Japanese voters are not ready for the party that relies on AI.
“Voters choose who they can rely on and whoever they are involved in is in line with people’s feelings,” he told CNN. “AI is completely different from that.”
He said that it is unlikely that Okumura’s experiment will grow into a wider trend, and that Japan is a pluralistic democracy that values diverse opinions.
If a party leaves AI to make all decisions, the professor said that if not all parties are the same, they might call them “naturally anti-democracy.”
Okumura is not the first to try and put AI into a political office.
Last year, Victor Miller, a candidate for Mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, voted for AI Chatbotvik, but the British man plans to take part in parliamentary elections as AI Steve in the city of Brighton and also delegate authority to the neural network.
Both men, whose models were first run on ChatGpt, said they saw the main benefits of wit in AI and the ability to communicate in the public at any time.
Their actions prompted Openai, the owner of ChatGpt, to reduce access to the software, but Wyoming officials issued a reminder saying, “AI bots are not qualified electors.”
Thomas Ferretti, a senior lecturer in ethics and sustainable business at the University of Greenwich in the UK, says that just as AI technology can speed up data analytics and increase government efficiency, political decisions alone cannot risk becoming an ethical issue.
“When AI systems support political decisions, the problem is that people have different values and disagree with what our social goals should be,” he told CNN.
Theodore Lecterman, chairman of UNESCO AI Ethics and Governance at the IE University in Spain, said the relationship between politicians and voters also goes beyond merely a delegation of power.
“We expect human politicians to act autonomously, act on their initiatives, and operate in the physical and social world, where they must interact with fellow human politicians and members, examine earthly conditions, and attend rituals,” CNN said.
He said that using AI should be “intentionally, honestly and transparently approached” and it is important for voters to remember who is responsible.
But for Okumura, it’s about things as pioneering as political participation.
“We are heading towards a world of dialogue with AI. If that happens, how should we proceed with social and political systems that have been taken for granted?” he said at a press conference.
“We want to be the first to perform that experiment on the cutting edge.”
