OpenAI shuts down AI agent that was 'running for mayor' in Wyoming

An artificial intelligence (AI) model that was running for mayor in Wyoming has been taken offline — to the likely relief of its human rivals.

The system, a customized version of the large language model (LLM) GPT-4 that powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT, was running for mayor in Cheyenne, Wyoming under the name "VIC," which is short for "Virtually Integrated Citizen."

Cheyenne resident Victor Miller set up the virtual candidate and trained the LLM on thousands of documents from the town's council meetings after a frustrating encounter with the city's records department. He had hoped his digital candidate would beat incumbent Patrick Collins when residents voted on November 5.

But VIC's election bid was cut short on June 18, when OpenAI severed Miller's access to the public version of the tool, CNN reported.

"We’ve taken action against these uses of our Technology for violating our policies against political campaigning," an OpenAI spokesperson told CNN.

Related: AI models could devour all of the internet's written knowledge by 2026 

OpenAI bans users from using their applications for political campaigning and lobbying, including the generation of AI-generated “deepfake” images to spread political misinformation.