Super Tuesday transpired largely as anticipated this year, with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both securing substantial leads in their respective primaries. Nevertheless, a surprising turn of events unfolded for Biden in American Samoa, where he was defeated by Jason Palmer, a Maryland-based businessman who attributes his victory to the pivotal role of artificial intelligence in his campaign strategy.
Upon testing Palmer’s AI campaign tool firsthand, the purported impact of AI in his triumph appears somewhat dubious.
In a remarkable upset, Palmer, a tech venture capitalist, outpaced Biden by a notable margin, clinching victory by a mere 11 votes out of 91 cast in the American Samoa presidential caucus. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Palmer attributed his success to the deployment of his generative AI, dubbed PalmerAI, which facilitated outreach efforts in the region, enabling him to conduct a campaign in Samoa with just a five-person full-time staff.
Despite never physically visiting the remote South Pacific island, Palmer lauds his chatbot for enabling virtual campaigning in a region that had been overlooked by Biden’s campaign. Palmer expressed to the WSJ that the people of Samoa felt his presence through the virtual meetings and engagements facilitated by AI.
The development of PalmerAI, which incurred a $25,000 investment, was a collaborative effort with Conversica, a California-based software company. The CEO of Conversica informed the WSJ that the chatbot designed for Palmer engaged with 44,000 voters nationwide.
The functionality of the AI itself is rather conventional, serving as a conversational interface that mimics Palmer’s voice and appearance to communicate his campaign positions to voters. Stringent controls and safeguards are in place to restrict the AI to topics within its training dataset, encompassing “his policies, public statements, professional background, or issues pertinent to his campaign and the presidential election.”
During our interaction with the AI, inquiries regarding Palmer’s stances on prominent political subjects such as Israel/Palestine, reproductive rights, and systemic inequities yielded informative responses. However, queries outside its domain, such as views on sex work or lighthearted topics like “waffles or pancakes,” elicited non-substantive replies.
Jason Palmer’s endorsement of reparations has been confirmed. Image Credit: Jason Palmer/Conversica
The debate surrounding the permissible applications of generative AI remains contentious. Its utilization in electoral processes represents a nascent development, accompanied by apprehensions about deepfakes and their potential influence on presidential campaigns. In a recent move, the FCC prohibited AI-driven robocalls following incidents where voters received directives from a deepfake impersonating Biden’s voice, advising against participation in the New Hampshire primary.
In essence, Palmer’s unexpected triumph in American Samoa appears to reflect not solely the efficacy of his AI tool but rather the electorate’s dissatisfaction with President Biden. Factors such as Biden’s age and his handling of the Gaza conflict have evidently fueled voter discontent. Particularly for Samoa, a territory whose residents lack voting rights in federal elections, this election presents a rare opportunity for their voices to resonate.
