An AI-based candidate is set to run for mayor in Tirana, Albania, after the country’s Prime Minister added an AI-generated minister to the cabinet.
Artificial Intelligence, AI, has been helping with, and even taking, people’s jobs for decades at this point. The majority of them have been labour jobs, though, like car manufacturing, with robot arms being used for the precise installation of doors and other pieces.
It has, however, started being used in other roles as well. YouTube now has an AI radio host that talks between songs, and people have started using it for companionship. One woman has claimed to be engaged to Grok’s AI chatbot, suggesting they are “soulmates.”
In Albania, AI has been used more in the political sphere. Prime Minister Edi Rama appointed Diella, an AI-generated ‘minister’, to his cabinet to run the country’s e-Albania portal.
Albanian AI wants to run for mayor
Now, a group of IT experts are putting forward an AI bot to run for mayor in the Albanian capital of Tirana.
According to the creators, the aptly named TirANA (Tirana Algorithmic Neural Assistant), would use “a large team of experts from various fields” to plot out policies and change. However, it isn’t a parody of the Diella model that is already used.
“Our goal is not just to make a comparison with Diella, even though the comparison arises naturally. We are testing the legal boundaries to see whether it is possible for such an entity to register with the Central Election Commission (CEC),” they told BIRN.
TirANA wants to be Mayor of the city that is her namesake.
TirANA hasn’t yet been added to the mayoral race, with the CEC noting that all candidates have to “Albanian citizens who meet the criteria set out in the constitution and the electoral code.”
As per BalkanInsight, Besmir Semanaj, one of the minds behind TirANA, said that the AI bot would meet the transparency standards needed.
“Every citizen has the opportunity to see the code, monitor the data sources, and verify its functionality,” he said.
