wiener

A parody AI chatbot designed by California congressional candidate Scott Wiener’s campaign to mock the record of his opponent attracted the attention politicians crave and criticism most loathe.

The short-lived experiment stirred controversy over the use of artificial intelligence in campaigns ads and drew sharp criticism from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has endorsed Wiener’s opponent for the coveted San Francisco congressional seat. Wiener quickly pulled the plug.

Candidates on both sides of the aisle have been testing the waters by integrating generative AI into campaign ads. It comes as no surprise to political sociologist Mindy Romero, the director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, who said candidates have long used all tools at their disposal to reach voters, from the invention of the radio and TV to social media.

“Using AI is just part of the progression,” Romero said. Generative AI is particularly useful for political candidates since it allows them to subconsciously influence viewers by putting words in their opponents’ mouths, she said.

Even as political campaigns experiment with more outlandish applications of the technology, many have already been using AI in quieter ways, including to compose tailored mailings and participate in digital chat rooms, Romero said.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton on July 24 released three cinematic ads made using generative AI, the first of which features fictional portrayals of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, shown sharing a lavish meal.

The ad also depicts a fake Xavier Becerra, his Democratic rival in the governor’s race, who is heard saying, “I believe all the things that Newsom believes.” The ad ends with Hilton facing off against a massive red-eyed robot meant to represent the “Democratic machine.” An AI disclaimer appears in the last five seconds of the two-minute and 29-second video.

“Campaigns have always adopted new technology, from television to the internet to social media,” Hilton campaign spokesperson Hector Barajas said in a statement. “Generative AI is the next step, and we believe it would be irresponsible not to use every lawful, ethical, and innovative tool to communicate with California voters.”

Spencer Pratt, who unsuccessfully ran for L.A. mayor, in May reposted on X a viral Batman-inspired AI-generated video that depicted Mayor Karen Bass as the Joker, the clownish supervillain. Charles Curran, the filmmaker who made the fan video in support of Pratt, appears to now be working with Hilton’s campaign in a more official capacity, with his X account tagged on several campaign social media posts.

“I view this as the evolution of political satire,” Curran said, referring to his AI videos, in an interview with the Washington Times. “Like Mark Twain. Like Tammany Hall.” Curran did not respond to interview requests.

“We’re on the bleeding edge right now,” said Sacramento political consultant Tim Rosales, who ran Republican John Cox’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. He said he anticipates that campaigns will more fully understand and use AI to its full extent in the next two election cycles.

California campaigns have long been at the forefront of adopting new technologies. In the 1980s, the late political strategist Clint Reilly was among the first political consultants to use voter roll data to segment and target pivotal voters for turnout and persuasion.

Rosales said that because campaigns in California are more expensive and raise more money than those in other states, “You have a lot more tools in your tool box and more toys you can play with.”

Lynn Vavreck, a political science and communications studies professor at UCLA, said the persuasive effects of Hilton’s AI videos are likely “limited” as they are most likely being watched by supporters. The videos, she said, are more akin to “content creation” than to ads.

Romero said AI technology can be beneficial for campaigns, particularly those with limited funds, that may use it to create outreach lists, assist with analysis or generate creative and campaign materials.

But AI-generated video, images and audio are a “double-edged sword,” Romero said. While effective at drawing attention, they may have the unwanted effect of making viewers uncomfortable by blurring the lines of reality — even if the AI use is disclosed. As a result, political campaigns must make a “strategic calculation” when they opt to use them, she said.

Those perils surfaced last week when the campaign of Wiener (D-San Francisco), who is running for the congressional seat held by the outgoing Pelosi, unveiled an AI chatbot that could be accessed on the ConnieChan.ai website.

The site referred to itself as “Connie, the world’s first AI trained to say no to anything you ask.” The footer included a note that the site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Chan, is meant as parody, and is paid for by Wiener’s campaign.

“Bring me an idea and I’ll explain why it can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t happen,” the site said, followed by a box encouraging users to type in a query. The chatbot would then produce a snide response parodying Chan.

When The Times entered the word “housing” into the text box last week, its response came seconds later.

“I built my career opposing new housing in San Francisco,” the chatbot’s response read. “I aggressively defend the status quo, and I’m fine with exploding rents and mass displacement.” It then rattled off examples including Chan’s opposition to Wiener’s state law to streamline housing projects.

Wiener campaign spokesperson Joe Arellano said Wednesday that he came up with the idea of making a chatbot ad shortly after the June primary election, when he saw a video showing a group of people putting up parody tech and AI advertisements in the New York City subway.

“I thought, this is an opportunity to do this right in the heart of innovation here in San Francisco,” Arellano said. “San Francisco right now is having this moment around AI and the billboards. … The overall craze around the industry has become a cultural moment.”

The chatbot cost $5,000 to make, a sum that includes the cost to secure the domain, host the site and obtain the pro version of Anthropic’s Claude AI model, plus staff time, according to Arellano. The campaign spent an additional $20,000 to rent two billboards in San Francisco promoting the bot.

The idea was to highlight Chan’s “record of obstructing progress” through a “chatbot that essentially says no to any kind of policy that you’re proposing,” Arellano said.

Chan’s campaign and her allies saw it differently.

“[It’s] never a good idea for a man to put words in a woman’s mouth — especially when they are falsities fraught with racist and sexist undertones,” Ian Krager, a spokesperson for Chan’s campaign, said in a text message. The chatbot, Krager said, showed Wiener was “bought and paid for by Big AI.”

Chan’s campaign shared several screenshots of interactions with the chatbot with The Times, including one in which the chatbot was asked if it was “from China.” (Chan was born in Hong Kong.)

According to the campaign’s screenshot, the chatbot replied that its “origins are classified under about seventeen different committee review processes.”

Then, it pivoted: “But I’d love to help obstruct something *else* you’re curious about! Here are some of my favorite topics,” and spat out a menu of topics to choose from, which included “blocking housing” and “derailing public transit.”

Wiener’s campaign said the chatbot was created with “strict guardrails” and designed to ignore controversial and malicious prompts and pivot back to Chan’s policy record.

Pelosi, who has endorsed Chan in the race, released a statement Thursday criticizing Wiener’s campaign for the chatbot, calling its use of AI to “fabricate a woman’s voice for ridicule or attack” a “gross misuse of technology.”

At first, Wiener defended himself, writing on X Thursday evening that his rival’s campaign inundated the chatbot with “malicious questions” about her accent, race and citizenship that the chatbot refused. The next day, Wiener reversed course.

“[Our] use of an AI chatbot clearly missed the mark,” Wiener said in a statement Friday. “The conversation became about the tactic instead of the issues that actually matter to San Franciscans.”

Wiener’s campaign on Friday took the chatbot offline and announced plans to take down the billboards.

Romero said experts began to have widespread discussions about how AI could be used to sway voters and affect democracy in the lead-up to the 2024 election when a company sent deceptive phone messages that used AI to mimic President Biden’s voice and discourage people from voting.

Since then, there have been several efforts by California lawmakers to rein in AI-generated advertising.

Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2024 signed several AI-related bills. They include AB 2839, which banned the distribution of materially deceptive content that could harm a candidate’s reputation or electoral prospects, with exceptions for satire and parody, and AB 2355, which requires a committee that creates a political ad to disclose if it was generated or substantially altered by AI.

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) have renewed an effort to update the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to clarify that existing bans on “fraudulent misrepresentation of campaign authority” and the “fraudulent solicitation of funds” also extend to AI-generated content.

“Fraudulent AI advertising has already proliferated in races across the country, and if Congress does not act, this runaway challenge will only get worse as AI becomes increasingly capable of blurring the lines between fact and fiction,” Schiff said in a statement.

Elena Kuhn, a spokesperson for Schiff, said the proposed legislation applies to material that attempts to “speak on behalf of other candidates,” meaning Hilton’s AI-generated cinematic clip of himself fighting a robot would be not be banned — contrary to the Republican candidate’s claims that it would be.

California Democratic senators failed to advance a proposal Tuesday that would have barred registered sex offenders from running for office.

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) voted against Assembly Bill 2753, while fellow Sens. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) and Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) abstained from a vote that ultimately failed 2-1-2 in the Senate Elections and Constitutional Committee.

The committee’s lone Republican, Steve Choi (R-Irvine), and Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) voted in favor of the bill, which is likely dead because it failed to get support from a majority of the five-member panel.

AB 2753 could be reviewed in a floor session Thursday, but staff from the office of Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria (D-Fresno), who authored the bill, are conceding that’s unlikely.

The defeat comes on the heels of unanimous support, including a 60-0 vote in favor on the Assembly Floor on May 7.

“I am deeply disappointed and disheartened after the Senate Elections Committee has failed to advance AB 2753, a bill that would have prohibited any registered sex offender in the State of California from running for local or state public office,” Soria said in a statement.

The bill’s wording said the legislation would “prohibit a person from being a candidate for, or elected to, any state or local elective office if the person has ever been required to register as a sex offender.”

Inquiries to the offices of Sens. Wiener, Umberg and Allen were not immediately returned.

Sex offenses in California are broken up into three tiers. First-tier offenses call for a minimum of 10 years placement on the sex offender registry. Second-tier offenses call for a minimum of 20 years and third tier crimes could result in a lifetime on the registry.

The types of offenses for each tier vary. Tier 1 offenses range from indecent exposure to misdemeanor child pornography and sexual battery. Tier 2 includes incest and penetration with a foreign object, and Tier 3 includes felony possession of child pornography, rape and pimping and pandering of a minor.

Wiener asked for amendments to the bill during the bill’s review and in the committee meeting, including that the lifetime ban only be applied to Tier 3 members.

He pointed to committee analysis of the bill that could affect so-called “Romeo and Juliet” couples — those close in age, for instance with one partner being 19 and the other being 17. If the younger partner sent sexually explicit digital content to the older partner (a misdemeanor), this law could ban the older partner from public office for life.

There were also concerns listed in the analysis that the registry, which dates back to 1947, could include LGBTQ+ offenders from decades ago who were convicted of offenses that are no longer crimes.

Wiener mentioned in the committee meeting civil rights strategist and fighter Bayard Rustin being placed on the California sex offender’s registry list after being arrested by Pasadena Police for having consensual sex with another man in 1953.

“Without the amendment contained in the analysis, I will be voting ‘no’ on this bill and recommending that the committee vote ‘no,’” Wiener said at the committee hearing.

He added that the sex offender list was “not punishment,” but instead “a tool for law enforcement to monitor who may potentially cause a risk.”

While Soria agreed to one bill amendment, she did not accept other provisions, including the elimination of lifetime bans on Tier 1 or 2 offenses.

“The bottom line is this: I was not willing to make additional amendments to this bill,” she said. “I made a promise to my community that I would do everything in my power to ensure they would never have to go through something like this again. Accepting additional amendments to this bill would have jeopardized that promise.”

Some of the impetus behind her bill revolved around the June 2 Fresno City Council election. Registered sex offender Rene Campos fell short of the necessary votes in his bid to run for Central Valley Council.

He was charged with possession of child pornography in 2018 and hosted his campaign kickoff in front of an elementary school.

Nelson Esparza, Fresno City Council President, spoke at the Senate Elections and Constitutional Committee meeting in favor of AB 2753.

“My office received dozens of calls from our residents asking how this could be allowed,” Esparza said of Campos’ candidacy. “AB 2753 closes this loophole.”

It’s unclear if this bill will be reintroduced next year at least at the Assembly level, as Soria is running for the state senate in November.

The first rule of a primary election is: Don’t make too much of the results.

The intrepid folks who bother to cast a ballot in these first-round races are largely a group of engaged voters, and drawing conclusions from such a narrow minority is a losing game.

So however the final June results tally out, the lessons learned won’t easily translate to the larger electorate that will almost surely show up in November. But if this election doesn’t tell us much about what fall voters will do, it does tell us something about the Democratic Party that dominates this state: It’s chaotic, to put it gently. And no, that’s not entirely the fault of the “jungle” primary.

Traditional rules seem to have broken down (not a bad thing) and new ones haven’t yet emerged. The old guard has lost control, and maybe vision, and the result is more candidates willing to sidestep seniority and a wait-your-turn mentality to try their luck — especially younger progressives.

Sometimes that chutzpah works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s a mirror of the national trend of Democratic infighting and a glimpse into just how fragmented the party has become as it tries to figure out who it stands for and who it supports before the 2028 presidential election.

“I feel like I’m definitely running against major institutional forces, but that’s how it is,” state Sen. Scott Wiener told me recently. “At times we see sort of a little bit of a fortress mentality, and other perspectives are not welcome, and younger folks, newer voices are not welcome, and and that’s a dynamic that plays out in a lot of different places.”

Wiener, who could be considered king of the line-jumpers, just took the top spot in the San Francisco-centered race to represent the 11th Congressional District, the seat held by Nancy Pelosi since 1987, when Wiener was 17.

By most accounts, Pelosi and Wiener had a mostly cordial relationship until last year, when he entered the race before she announced her retirement. Though Wiener had been clear for years that he planned such a run when Pelosi stepped down, Pelosi is an icon in the city, beloved by constituents and uncontested as queen of the old guard.

Announcing his campaign before she officially made that decision — or had the chance to choose her successor — sent shock waves through the political firmament. When Pelosi endorsed Supervisor Connie Chan in May, it was seen by many as a sign of her displeasure. Chan, who had struggled to gain traction in the primary, came in second with the Pelosi boost and will face Wiener in November.

Across the state, there were other races with upstart contenders. In Southern California, Jake Levine, a progressive Democrat who served in the Obama White House, took on incumbent Brad Sherman. Sherman, who at 71 has served almost 30 years in Congress, resoundingly beat out Levine by more than 20 points.

In Sacramento, there is Mai Vang, a progressive City Council member, who is challenging Rep. Doris Matsui, another member of the old guard royalty. Vang is in a tie for second place with a Republican contender as remaining votes are counted.

And of course, there is the governor’s race itself, which included a field so determined and uncontrollable even before the fiasco of Eric Swalwell’s sexual misconduct scandal that the state Democratic Party started putting out its own polling in a seeming bid to convince some blue contenders to drop out. It didn’t work. Notably, progressive Katie Porter and moderate San José Mayor Matt Mahan stuck in until the bitter end. But old guard candidate Xavier Becerra came out on top.

If these races have a lesson, it’s that different Democratic voters want different things, but the party hasn’t figured out how to embrace that other than offering up the moderate middle ground.

“This is a big question to this Democratic establishment, about how big of a tent they want to build,” said Irene Kao of Courage California, a progressive advocacy organization.

She said that it “bodes well” that so many strong progressive challengers came out for the primary, because it allows a chance for candidates outside the party power structure to find an audience with voters, even if they are ultimately unsuccessful.

And where voters go, the party will eventually be forced to follow. That doesn’t necessarily mean a more progressive Democratic Party, but it likely means a more inclusive one if they want to lure the kind of low-information and low-propensity voters who make or break a general election.

“People are sick of the games, and sick of people trying to just maneuver things to get their own person in,” Wiener said. “People want to have choices.”

Even on her way out, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — 86 and retiring — held sway.

Last month, in the final stretch of the race to replace her, Pelosi endorsed Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors and a candidate who had until then struggled to gain traction. The move clearly had an effect, with Chan advancing out of Tuesday’s primary to the general election in November, according to the Associated Press.

Political observers were quick to note that Pelosi’s famed political influence was alive and well, as made clear as of Wednesday morning by Chan’s bounding past the third-place finisher, tech millionaire and Democratic political operative Saikat Chakrabarti, who self-funded his campaign to the tune of nearly $10 million.

But cast another way, the race’s early results also showed the limits of Pelosi’s influence — in the form of state Sen. Scott Wiener, who as of Wednesday morning was clearly the race’s front-runner, holding a double-digit lead over both Chan and Chakrabarti.

Wiener — an ambitious and prolific state lawmaker with a strong base in San Francisco, particularly in the liberal bastion’s LGBTQ+ community — has long eyed the seat but held off from running for years in deference to Pelosi, a trailblazing politician and one of the most powerful of her generation. She was the first woman ever elected House Speaker in 2007 and oversaw both of President Trump’s first-term impeachments.

However, that changed in late October, when Wiener, 56, announced he couldn’t wait any longer and would be running this year. His announcement came before Pelosi had announced her own plans, amid broader party backlash against gerontocracy and elderly incumbents holding on within the aging Democratic establishment, and it appeared to irk her.

In early November, shortly after California voters passed Proposition 50 to allow Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts to better favor Democrats — an initiative she helped spearhead — the still influential Pelosi announced she would retire.

In that announcement, Pelosi thanked San Francisco voters for giving her wide latitude to be a fearless voice in Washington. She hadn’t faced a serious election challenge since the Reagan administration. In her last race, in 2024, she won reelection with 81% of the vote.

Pelosi then waited until last month to endorse Chan as her chosen successor.

Chan, 47, who was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to San Francisco with her family at age 13, was first elected to the board of supervisors in 2020, and has been chair of its budget committee since February 2023. Before winning office, she was a Chinese interpreter and then an aide for nearly 15 years to several different Democratic politicians from the Bay Area, including then-San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris.

Other establishment figures, such as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, endorsed Chan as well.

Last week, Pelosi said she’d decided to weigh in and back Chan in part because, after spending years boosting women into positions of power, she’d realized there weren’t enough around anymore.

“It’s not about women being better than men; it’s that we have to have women at the table,” she told NBC News.

At her election night party, Chan told the SF Standard that Pelosi’s endorsement “absolutely changed the tide” in the race, delivering a “fatal punch” on behalf of her campaign.

But that punch, if devastating to Chakrabarti’s campaign, had clearly not knocked out Wiener — who was ready Tuesday night with a few punches of his own in a speech to his supporters.

“Tonight, San Franciscans sent a very clear message,” he said, according to shared remarks. “San Franciscans are ready for bold leadership, real results, and a new generation of leaders that isn’t afraid to take on the toughest fights facing our country.”

Wiener, who served in the San Francisco board of supervisors himself before winning election to the state Senate in 2016, said in this political moment, “we can’t afford politics that simply preserve the status quo.”

He said, “I’m not going to Washington to sit quietly, protect the status quo, or wait my turn.”

“I’m going to fight relentlessly for Medicare for all, to build millions of homes, to make public transit more expansive and reliable, for affordable clean energy, for working families, for civil rights, and for democracy itself,” he said. “I’m going to fight to protect our immigrant neighbors, LGBTQ people, reproductive freedom, and the rule of law — and to protect them from Donald Trump and MAGA extremism.”

Others, including many in the LGBTQ+ community, also cheered the strong showing from Wiener, who is gay and has long championed LGBTQ+ rights. Kelley Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ rights organization Human Rights Campaign, said her organization was “thrilled.”

“We need more voices like Wiener in Washington. Not only would he expand the number of openly LGBTQ+ members of Congress, he has a record of impact and delivering for his constituents,” Robinson said. “We are excited to support him on to victory in November.”

With Tuesday’s primary settled, a new head-to-head race for Pelosi’s seat begins — one that, given her endorsement of Chan and Wiener’s intentional focus on pulling San Francisco in a new direction, will be an even clearer referendum on her influence.