What Happened to the A.I. Election? + ChatGPT for Mayor + The Productivity Tools We’re Using

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This week, we discuss why so few campaigns seem to be experimenting with A.I. The Times’s Sheera Frenkel joins us with examples of the many different artificial intelligence products that have been turned down by campaigns in this election cycle, from A.I.-generated endorsements from long-dead historical figures to a synthetic version of Donald Trump. Then, we interview the Wyoming man who ran for mayor on the promise that he would exclusively use a customized ChatGPT bot to run the city. And finally, it’s time for a tech check. We run down the apps we’re using to become more productive.

Guest:

• Sheera Frenkel, a Times reporter covering technology

• Victor Miller, former candidate for mayor in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Additional Reading:

• The Year of the A.I. Election That Wasn’t

• Mayoral Candidate Vows to Let VIC, an AI Bot, Run Wyoming’s Capital City

• Three Apps That Made Me More Productive This Year

Credit…Photo Illustration by The New York Times

Credits

“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. The show is edited by Jen Poyant. Engineering by Daniel Ramirez and original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking this week by Ena Alvarado.

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Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Nell Gallogly, Dahlia Haddad and Jeffrey Miranda.