The race for the congressional seat representing San Francisco that has long been held by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi took a contentious turn this past week, after one of the candidates launched an artificial intelligence chatbot that his campaign said was designed to impersonate his opponent.
The move by state Sen. Scott Wiener was blasted by his opponent — San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and her supporters — as sexist, racist and a troubling use of AI as a campaign tactic.
The race pits two Democrats — a state senator representing the city, Wiener — and the District 1 representative on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Chan — against each other for the race to succeed Pelosi, who was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1987 and announced last year that she would not seek re-election.
Wiener’s campaign launched an AI chatbot at the website it created called conniechan.ai that the campaign said was meant to highlight policy positions Chan has taken that Wiener wanted to draw attention to.
But the move was blasted by Chan — and by Pelosi, who endorsed Chan during a close primary race that saw the two receive the most votes and advance to November’s general election.
Pelosi, Democrats blast AI chatbot
Chan released a video accusing Wiener of creating the chatbot “to mock me and to make up stories about me.”
The chatbot was launched the same week that new regulations governing transparency around AI began to be enforced by the state of California.
A letter from Pelosi and several other elected leaders and political clubs released Thursday blasted the stunt as an attack on the progress women had made over generations in politics.
The letter was signed by U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Santa Clara, and San Francisco Supervisors Jackie Fielder and Chyanne Chen — all of whom have endorsed Chan — along with several San Francisco and Bay Area Democratic political groups, including the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, and the Rose Pak Asian American Club.
“Women have spent generations fighting to have our own voices heard in the halls of power,” the letter said. “We should not have to now fight against artificial intelligence putting words in our mouths.”
Wiener’s campaign rejected the criticism in a statement on Friday before saying on Saturday that the tool had been taken down.
Wiener said the chatbot was labeled as parody and accused Chan’s supporters of asking the chatbot “malicious” questions to discredit it and create controversy.
“Having failed at that effort, Chan’s endorsers, including Speaker Emerita Pelosi, are now making baseless claims about the chatbot, which is clearly labeled as a parody. No reasonable person would believe the website is from Connie Chan,” Wiener said in a campaign statement.
The next day, Saturday, Wiener said his campaign would take down the chatbot and associated billboards targeting Chan, saying the tactics had become a distraction.
Wiener said in a statement he was never “afraid to push the envelope.”
“But our use of an AI chatbot clearly missed the mark,” he said. “The conversation became about the tactic instead of the issues that actually matter to San Franciscans — housing and health care they can afford, transit that works, schools that serve every kid, and a downtown that comes back stronger. The focus must remain on those critical issues, so we’re taking the chatbot and billboards down.”
On Sunday, the website displayed a message saying it was undergoing maintenance and promised to be back soon. It still displayed an image of Chan in the tab of the website displayed on a browser window.