Politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises after winning an election. Who can we trust? In Japan, they have already found an alternative with an artificial intelligence that ran as mayor of Tama, a district of Tokyo.
Science fiction is slowly becoming reality. Late last year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to Sophia, a humanoid robot. Now Japan is making news because of the mayoral elections held in the Tama district of Tokyo. The area has seen posters with the faces of each party's leaders, along with the usual slogans promising positive changes for residents. But one party was represented by a robot figure, proposing an artificial intelligence as a candidate for the city's next mayor.
This situation is straight out of "The Waldo Moment", the classic Black Mirror episode where a blue cartoon bear runs as a candidate in a parliamentary election. Here, Michihito Matsuda is the "robot" that campaigned under the slogan "Artificial intelligence can change the city of Tama". An audacious statement announcing a new era, since human politicians are famous for not keeping campaign promises after winning the election. Could an impartial mayor like an artificial intelligence actually do something for the city?
Election history
This is not the first time Michihito Matsuda (the AI Mayor) has run for mayor of Tama; he also tried to win the hearts of residents four years ago. In the 2014 election, however, candidate Hiroyuki Abe won a landslide victory with 31,828 votes to Michihito's 3,509. History repeated itself in the latest election, as Hiroyuki won again with more than 34,000 votes. Behind him were Takahashi Toshihiko with 4,457 votes and Michihito Matsuda with 4,013 votes. Why was there such a gap in the votes? Perhaps the residents of Tama didn't have the courage to trust their future to an artificial intelligence, or maybe the prospect of a dystopian future ruled by robots, as seen in science fiction films, made them nervous.
Official site: AI Mayor
