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A Constructive Use of Artificial Intelligence to Solve the GOP's Town Hall Problem [1]

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Date: 2025-03-21

We seem to have a problem. GOP Congresspeople are dodging town halls, and being rude to constituents when the town halls are held.

I think we can solve this problem with Artificial Intelligence.

A word to our Friends in the GOP.

Hey guys! We know you’re BUSY, watching bemusedly as the laws are faithfully executed, as required by the Constitution you swore to uphold and defend.

Pro Tip: “faithfully executed” here actually means “put into effect conscientiously, efficiently, effectively, and well, as Congress directed and using the resources Congress has approved.” It does not mean “killed as effectively and efficiently and rapidly as possible.”

An easy error! “Executed” is a confounding word. Your confusion is completely understandable. No worries, and now you know.

But this confusion may be why your constituents generally want to talk to you.

Yes, yes, really really busy! That’s why we are here to help. All we need to do — is clone you. Then your clones will take the meetings! No, No, don’t thank us. We don’t need your thanks, or even permission. We’ll just do it to be helpful.

Primer on training AI Avatars to Solve the Problem.

Ok Team. Now that we have the GOP’s attention — let’s get specific. Why use AI Clones, and how would it work?

The advantage to AI clones is — speed. With biological clones, we have to spend all that time nagging them to clean up their rooms and get their feet off the furniture and also study. And sleep. And be nice to their little brothers and sisters. And stay away from bad influences. It just takes too long! And outcomes can be uncertain.

Worst of all it does kind of require the personal and in-person participation of the original, at least to initiate the process — though adoption or recruitment can be an expedient alternative.

Artificial Intelligence sidesteps all that messiness.

Of course, the AI clone, while being trained up, also doesn’t unexpectedly do something super kind and generous and so heartwarming that it suddenly brings tears to your eyes and gives you hope about the future of humankind. And also it won’t create really bad drawings and deliver them to you wrapped like a present complete with hugs, thus making your heart bubble up with joy and giving your refrigerator magnets something to do.

But on the bright side, with AI, we can get the training done a lot faster — a matter of days or weeks at most, I’d think — and much less haphazardly, and with much greater control of the outcome.

We can realistically expect to deliver, on time and on schedule, a personalized clone that can answer all the questions at least as well as the original, but entirely consistently with the original’s phrasing, language usage, and stated points of view, and with no risk of independent intuition.

How?

The Method, Outlined.

Step 1: You’ll need a prepared “mind.” That’s been taken care of with ChatGPT and its ilk, so check that off. You have at your fingertips the AI engines: minds ready to learn.

Step 2: You’ll need the training material. We have a wealth of it. For any given member of Congress, the internet will be filled with their own Facebook pages, campaign pages, websites, op-eds, campaign literature, speeches on the floor, committee hearings (all in the Congressional Record), interviews on FOX, and some accidental interviews where they thought it was FOX but turned out to be a local band kid with a blog. And it’s all public-facing. You can find it, and add to it over time.

In Step 2, to make the answer possibilities richer, it’s always nice to include the writings and speeches of the people they admire most. So I suggest you train the AI Avatar also with President Trump’s speeches and tweets. And Elon Musk’s X feed since about July 2024.

Ok, now you have all the raw material the AI needs. Push the button and let it chew on it. When it’s ready, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3 is the inference training — what a teacher does for a student, by asking questions and correcting the answers. I suggest going very lightly here. We do NOT want anyone accusing us of editing, or putting our own spin on, their answers. They can speak for themselves, and frankly it’ll be a whole lot more entertaining when they do.

I suggest the ONLY training is to teach that “whatabout” answers, and answers that contain the word “Biden” or “Hillary” or “Obama”, are always wrong, unless the name is in the question. Generally, train to give an answer to the question, is all; no deflection.

This small filter will actually make the clones, in many cases, vastly more useful than the original, and also, not as rude.

Step 4: Voila! It lives and breathes! And is a lot easier for the Press to quote and film than the elusive original, with no loss of verisimilitude. Plus one can envision arranging private one-on-one interviews with local reporters, bloggers, and third grade social studies classes.

The possibilities are endless. Do, though, keep it up to date with latest new data.

Possible Enhancements.

Now — I am not enough of an AI guy to know whether anyone could create real-time AI “video” imagery of our congresspeople answering these questions, or whether we’d need to stick to text. Someone out there knows the state of that art.

I suspect we could at the very least create a sort of Max Headroom using photos and video clips?

I leave it to your fertile imagination.

Use Instructions.

Rent a large screen — HUGE screens are now routinely available for reasonable dollars at Costco. Connect your laptop running the fully trained AI.

Now INVITE PEOPLE TO THE TOWN HALL.

Pure text will work, but do consider the possibility of a video avatar to really bring the clone to life!

Or stream it? Or set it up on a Zoom town hall?

Use your own imagination. Just get it out there. It is after all a public service, and a kindness to your very busy GOP congressperson.

Let us know how it goes! Send us your link!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/21/2311680/-A-Constructive-Use-of-Artificial-Intelligence-to-Solve-the-GOP-s-Town-Hall-Problem?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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