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OpenAI Bans Developer for Creating Political Campaign Bot

The bot, known as Dean.Bot, was created to mimic presidential hopeful Dean Phillips and was funded by a super PAC that received significant backing, including $1 million from billionaire Bill Ackman.

  • OpenAI has banned the developer of a bot mimicking Democratic presidential hopeful Congressman Dean Phillips, marking the first action the AI company has taken in response to what it sees as a misuse of its tools in a political campaign.
  • The bot, known as Dean.Bot, was created by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Matt Krisiloff and Jed Somers, who started a super PAC named We Deserve Better supporting Phillips.
  • The super PAC contracted with AI start-up Delphi to build the bot, which was powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT software. OpenAI suspended Delphi's account late on Friday.
  • Dean.Bot, which had a disclaimer explaining that it was an AI tool, could converse with voters in real-time through a website, in an early use of an emerging technology that researchers have said could cause significant harm to elections.
  • The super PAC, We Deserve Better, has received $1 million from billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who called it 'by far the largest investment I have ever made in someone running for office' in a post on social media platform X.
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