Artificial intelligence company backed by Microsoft Corp.OpenAIfirstA developer was banned.ChatbotThe chatbot imitates Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips, marking the start-up's success.firstTaking censorship action against developers for violating its AI abuse guidelines.
Dean.Bot is a chatbot created by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Matt Krisiloff and Jed Somers. The pair formed a political action committee called "We Deserve Better" that endorsed Phillips ahead of the New Hampshire primary.
existfirstThe Washington Post reported the news, saying: "We recently removed a developer account for knowingly violating our API use policies, which prohibit political activism or impersonating individuals without consent."
Dean.bot does offer a disclaimer. Before anyone interacts with it, site visitors are informed that all of their questions will be answered by the chatbot, not Phillips himself. Dean.bot was developed by an Indian AI developer called Delphi AI Inc., which was commissioned to provide the chatbot with a user name and password.superPolitical action committees accomplish this task.
Delphi reportedly used OpenAIStrongestDelphi stopped access to Dean.Bot after the company’s OpenAI account was reportedly suspended last Friday.
Before being banned, Dean.Bot was able to conduct real-time conversations with voters through a dedicated website. The effort represented one of the most promising early use cases for generative AI technology, but it also directly violated OpenAI's usage policy.
Earlier this month, OpenAI outlined in a blog post the steps it is taking to prevent its technology from being misused in what could be a critical democratic election year in 2024. In OpenAI's blog post, the company explicitly stated that it would not allow people to develop apps for political campaigns and lobbying, which includes developing "chatbots that mimic candidates."
Proponents of generative AI say that when the technology is used appropriately, it can help educate voters in an entertaining way. In the case of "We Deserve Better," it argued that Dean.Bot was simply a creative way to help people learn more about their candidate.
However, many experts warn that generative AI bots could be misused to impersonate candidates and trick people into thinking they are talking to a real person, not a chatbot. There are also concerns about generative AI's ability to generate overtly false information.