Computer Scientists develop Software for Virtual Member of Congress

A group of computer scientists from Rutgers university have published a software intended for crowd-sourcing the ideal candidate. "We were asking ourselves: Why do we waste so much time with candidates who disagree with themselves, aren't able to recall their party's program, and whose intellectual output is inferior even to Shit Siri Says?" recalls Arthur McTrevor, who lead the project, "Today, we have software that can perform better."

McTrevor and his colleagues then started coding what they refer to as the "unopinionated artifical intelligence" of the virtual representative, the main information processing unit. The unopinionated intelligence is a virtual skeleton which comes alive by crowd-sourcing opinions from a selected group of people, for example party members. Members feed the software with opinions, which are then aggregated and reformulated to minimize objectionable statements. The result: The perfect candidate.

The virtual candidate also has a sophisticated speech assembly program, a pleasant looking face, and a fabricated private life. Visual and audial appearance can be customized. The virtual candidate has a complete and infallible command of the constitution, all published statistical data, and can reproduce quotations from memorable speeches and influential books in the blink of an eye. "80 microseconds, actually," said McTrevor. The software moreover automatically creates and feeds its own Facebook account and twitter feed.

The group from Rutgers tested the virtual representative in a trial run whose success is reported in a recent issue of Nature. In their publication, the authors point out that the virtual representative is not a referendum that aggregates the opinions of the general electorate. Rather, it serves a selected group to find and focus their identity, which can then be presented for election.

In an email conversation, McTrevor was quick to point out that the virtual candidate is made in USA, and its patent dated 2012. The candidate will be thus be eligible to run for congress at the "age" of 25, in 2037.