A Uruguayan startup created Politea, “a chatbot for democracy”, which brings to citizens the proposals of all the pre-candidates who will participate in the internal elections in Uruguay in a clear and simple way. The initiative is Civirt, company led by Justin Graside —one of the founders of Digital Party, whom he stopped presiding in 2021—; and uses the latest available model of ChatGPT, the GPT-4.0. It seeks to be a digital tool that helps more people know what each electoral candidate proposes and, consequently, vote in an informed manner.
“Politea uses everyday language to bring citizens the proposals of the pre-candidates, the points in common between them and other topics related to the electoral campaign,” Graside explained to Ambit. Fed with Artificial intelligencethe chatbot is “trained” with all the laws promulgated in Uruguay, the proposals of the candidates based on their government programs and Press appearances thereof. In addition, it is constantly updated by the Civirt team with news about the candidates.
“I have had a very big discussion with representatives and authorities, sometimes politicians, who say that make information available It is already being transparent. We are transparent because we put on live broadcasts of the sessions, because we publish the information, the laws, and everything is documented and published. And transparency does not mean, or is not enough to be transparent, publishing information, if that information is not accessible to people,” reflected the businessman in the technology sector.
“There is a promotional video for Politea that says: ‘democracy is not for everyone if we don’t all understand it.’ So I believe that there is a strong space that needed to be filled, which is to take proactive actions so that people understand natural language What is happening, both in the elections and at the level of legislative activity. And that’s where Politea came in and actions will continue to be developed in that sense, to make available in very natural and accessible language for people, for the general public, everything that is happening in the political field,” Graside added.
Regarding what content can be found and how that information was collected, the head of Politea said that they were based “on all the enacted laws, which are on the website of the Parliament and the Official diary”.
The next step will be the creation of a new tool, which will have a cost, with the enacted laws and public policies of the 20 most advanced democracies. “The idea is that it is a private political assistant, for those politicians, authorities, representatives, who want to receive ideas and advice on issues that interest them,” Graside announced.
The ethical dilemma of Artificial Intelligence
The head of the Civirt company did not avoid giving his opinion on the benefits but also the eventual problems that the Artificial intelligence to politics, as well as to coexistence between people if it were not “well” used.
“Artificial Intelligence is a tool, like a hammer: you can use it to hit someone’s head, or to drive a nail and build a house, for someone who needs it. So, it is a tool that can be used for good or evil. I believe that there is a very large bubble of everything that is talked about Artificial Intelligence, then this will be cleaned, and those things that are really useful will remain. Because Artificial Intelligence by itself is of no use if it is not fed with useful and verified information, and if there isn’t one Interface that it is accessible to the people you want to use it,” Graside analyzed.
“I would dare to say that now in the electoral campaign we are going to see some attempts at those things that seem risky, of some kind.” deep fake, of some very well-crafted fake news thanks to Artificial Intelligence, and there we are going to have to give the debate and try to educate people how to detect it,” he added, in this regard.
“As for the benefits, I think they are much more than the risks, I want to be optimistic in that sense, because it will allow politicians to do more and better things. I think it is super interesting for them to improve their level of debate, of the generation of ideas, of public policies, with a constant advisor there, fed by what the countries with the best results are doing,” he reflected.
“I believe that politicians can do their job more and better, I believe that political campaigns They can also be much more efficient, even increasing the level of the campaign, of the discussion, and on the other hand, for the general public, having more tools to control, exert pressure and to demand that politicians and the system be better. , like Politea itself, or some other things that can be done in make information better accessible that is available,” concluded Graside.
Source: Ambito
