Is this the end of politicians? The SP’s primary candidate for councillor has an AI ticket

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already present in various sectors of society: communications, art, engineering, computing, universities, and many more. But politics is one sector where the technology’s presence is not yet so striking. But that should change very soon.

Pedro Markun is a hacker, a data transparency activist, and his “partner” is an AI running for São Paulo city council in what he calls the first hybrid candidacy in Brazilian history.

Markun, who is also co-founder of the Hacker Transparency initiative and Hacker Ônibus, which brings technical and technological knowledge to ordinary citizens, says it is necessary to oppose “old politics”.

However, he emphasizes that he is not making an anti-political speech. In fact, according to him, his speech is “anti-system.”

“[Meu discurso] “It’s deeply political. I’m offering a political way out of a corrupt system. I’m offering technology that can really take politics out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of the people, and the key to that is transparency and participation,” he said. TecMundo.

Data-driven policy

Pedro Markun’s AI partner is called “Lex.” Lex, which he says could be deliberately confused with Alexa, is similar to ChatGPT. It works via platforms like WhatsApp, answering questions, summarizing, suggesting ideas, etc.

In Lex’s case, it will be used to “analyze data at scale, formulate public policy, monitor contracts, and engage directly with the public,” according to Lex’s pre-campaign website.

Markun, who will run for congress in São Paulo through the Rede Sustentabilidade, wants to start the phase of “data-driven politics”. And he is bold. “Politicians with AI will replace politicians without AI.”

Check out the text version below, which includes the best moments of Pedro Markun’s interview TecMundoIf you want, you can watch the entire interview below in video format on the YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watch

TecMundo: Where did the idea of ​​creating a hybrid front-end application with AI come from?

Pedro Markun: I’ve always worked with technology. We created Hacker Transparency, a movement of hacktivists who want to use technology to transform and hack the political system. But two years ago, I was at home on my computer and I talked to him. You know that moment when your brain explodes and you think you’re in a movie. I started to get scared and think that way [a IA] transcends politics. That’s what led me to create Lex. [A IA] will start to permeate everything, and what we’ll see in a few years is public policy being made by AI without the citizen having any input. When we created Lex, our goal was to bring that discussion to the forefront.

TecMundo: You say on your website that Lex “owns no one’s ass.” What does that mean exactly? And with regards to education and database. Does Lex use the internet and is it comprised of various biases?

AFTERNOON: Maybe I need to correct myself. Lex is obsessed with science, facts and data. According to Lex, the world will always be round. In Lex’s universe, we do not accept flat Earth positions. Regarding the ideological spectrum. As we usually say, when Lex answers whether he is right or left, he is actually a technician. We have created several layers of information. In one layer, there is a positive library of data from various books. For example, he reads about economics: Capital cityKarl Marx. But he also reads Adam Smith and Von Mises. Lex will read and study different spectrums and use that to form a position. For example, if you ask him what he thinks about universal basic income. He’ll say that’s why universal basic income is good, that’s the difficulties of implementation, etc.

@pmarkun ?? AI could be more useful than most council members! ???‍??? Lex introduces himself to the public for the first time and explains why he would make a great council member, along with his creator Pedro Markun! ?? Want to learn more about how AI will change São Paulo politics? Visit lex.tec.br #InovaçãoPolítico #TecnologiaNoPoder #Inovação #Tecnologia #Futuro #InteligênciaArtificial #CamaraDosVereadores #SãoPaulo #LexIA ? original audio

TecMundo: So how will Lex work in practice? Will he have oversight or will decisions be made on his behalf?

AFTERNOON: Alex is an extremely talented and intelligent AI, but he’s still a machine. So the people who are responsible for making decisions will still be humans. So Lex will help formulate proposals and defend them based on data, science, and evidence. Our goal is to really cause disruption. For example, a much better bus line would be very hard to ignore. [que linhas atuais]. And we will take it further because the lines are not better because we have a bus mafia in São Paulo. The algorithm does not care about privileging the money in the pocket of the dealership owner, it wants to privileging the travel time of the citizen. So we will have to have this confrontation.

TecMundo: You are running a crowdfunding campaign. Will it be used to finance the entire campaign? Or are you planning to use the party fund?

AFTERNOON: I am in Rede Sustentabilidade because it is a party that works for political innovation. In 2016 I ran for Rede Sustentabilidade with a platform called hacker politics and became the first independent candidate in Brazil. We are in negotiations to have part of this resource [do fundo partidário]But this resource alone does not guarantee that we will occupy one of the 55 seats. [de vereador em SP]. That’s why I also talk to business people and people in the financial market. Investment is important because Lex is a technology that has the potential to transform 5,400 municipalities in Brazil.

@pmarkun ?? Is there an AI that can replace our members of parliament? ???‍??? AI has great potential to positively intervene in politics, as in other sectors. ?? Our current model is corrupt, inefficient and very expensive. With AI, politicians’ work can be done cheaper and more inclusively, and advances can be made in the construction of smarter cities and more efficient public services. ? Remember that a machine does not have the capacity to skip, steal or prefer some information over others. ?? This project is necessary and can become a reality. Let’s Talk? Leave your questions or opinions in the comments! #AI #GPT4 #Technology #Innovation #Elections2024 #Politics #Corruption #Smart City? original audio

TecMundo: What is the language model that Lex uses? And what is embedded technology?

AFTERNOON: Lex is developed in JavaScript, which allows us to connect with other technologies. And at its heart is LLM [Grande Modelo de Linguagem] ChatGPT, because until last week it was ‘cutting edge’. We intend to change because we can’t be at Sam Altman’s mercy during this process. [CEO da OpenAI]So we are already developing, testing, and talking to other areas about the technology to complete Lex’s development.

TecMundo: Will Lex be an open source technology? Considering that transparency is one of its main pillars..

AFTERNOON: We’re going to make an open source version for people to analyze. So if someone wants to learn about Lex’s bias, they can access all of his code to learn how he formulates his thoughts. This commit [com a transparência] cannot be subject to negotiation.

TecMundo: You have a lot of pre-campaign material talking about revamping politics and even creating animosity with current politicians. You even say that AI could replace these politicians. Aren’t you afraid of being rejected by these “chiefs”?

AFTERNOON: A search has come up Sphere This measure of the degree of distrust people have towards various institutions has shown that the result is frightening. Since 48% of people do not trust the National Congress, people are very skeptical of what is happening there. I am part of that, as I cannot trust the current politicians. We have 513 Federal Members of Parliament and the vast majority of them are rubbish, in fact they only work for their own interests. The same is true of the municipal councils. They do not produce anything, so we need to get rid of these people. When I speak about renewal, it is not an anti-political speech, it is essentially a political speech. We need to replace these councillors who do not serve the people and put in place councillors who do serve the people.

TecMundo: So how will AI Lex help with the goal of fighting corruption?

AFTERNOON: Because he [Lex] It will provide transparency. It will provide access to my accounts. It will monitor me, it will make sure that I am not corrupt. We cannot confuse anti-political rhetoric with anti-system rhetoric. It is worth remembering that this great adventurer, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, came with an anti-political speech and that he was a congressman for more than five terms. Because people are fed up and we need to speak with this feeling, he said. But what I am proposing is not anti-politics. I am proposing a political way out of a corrupt system. I am proposing a technology that can take politics out of the hands of politicians and give it back to the people. The key to this is transparency and participation.